Our bony eucalyptus

sways like a skyscraper.

In its nests, the neighborhood’s

music grows. My mother’s father

painted this house.

He notched my height 

with pruners

till I outgrew the shovel.

I use it to break them,

pulling threads

from the earth.

In the pre-rain steam,

warning shots patter.

An owl hoots early, thrown

by the false dark.

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Portrait of my Lover in a Distant City

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I imagine it’s you

in Freud’s paintings, cold skin

splotched against another

 

lover’s thighs — that blooming

afforded by early evening sex

to the overworked,

 

the indebted. Winter inspires

the oddest thriving, nurseries

under power lines

 

and daydreams of the Sistine Chapel

projected on the roof

at CitiBank. The snow

 

crusts, your painted hip

drying white, while his hand

frees you like the peonies

 

climbing toward the cables’

electrified silhouettes.