Many of my lovers have been artists. His weren’t. Most of La Gauche Divine made love to Swedish models and Brazilian skinnies on the red velvet couches at Boccacio. Mine obsess over “the” work (well, B. concentrates on whores.) Me, I focus on this book, a mess in a few languages that blinks back. I rub my eyes, I feel like a jerk, Kirsten emails to try “centos.”

“as water weeps

as the wind weeps

(your name sounds more distant than ever.)

If only my fingers could 

defoliate the moon!”

(Lorca)

I’m losing my house for the fiftieth time, Kirsten. As I pack, move back, and cross continents (may the gods hold her during the crossing, my computer with the scars on her face) I will write sprawled over boxes, at airports and bars, breathing my own sweat

–“you don’t smell like kin.”

I will save the file every day, hidden, on face.

“Why was I born among mirrors?

The reaper is harvesting the wheat.

Who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea (?)”

(Lorca)

It’s harvest moon today. I take a picture. Walls of aluminum in the port of Fremantle are etched, by the acid in our hearts, with the names of those who came to Australia. I search with my fingers the sharp edges of the letters for names of errant Catalans who can’t look back, as Al-bert Farrés Blasi, as Viviane Vives Begliomini, the same long stride across time, always feeling the breeze, never able to return, for wanting to change a rhyme.

“I will make a ring of it

Empieza el llanto.”

(Lorca)