Daniel Green

Here Still
Miles Away

Nestled against the dog
Reading
The emerging terrain of my palm
An eternity of anonymity

One night
Under reddened thunderclouds
I saw two white horses
Leading a pack of coyotes
Over some canyon’s edge
From the confines of our bed
The garbled holy howls and neighs
Piercing the moon into pieces
Making me a goner

In the daylight
We sold stills of empty alleyways
From Wong Kar Wai’s latest
You’d say
Inventing small beliefs
For those less fortunate
But still in the know

I believed, too
Knowing better

The sun now rising
In the window
A rose, a lily
A lilting vine of leaky oranges

Once
I painted a portrait of your hair
Until I couldn’t see the brush
Thousands of tight ropes
Unwalkable
Transcendent in their purpose
Of blackness

There is nothing special
In this current architecture
An empty birdhouse
Nice enough
On the outside