A BALLAD FOR THE AUGUST LOVER

I

1:19am

Vancouver spills out of the speakers

in a song titled, “collapse”

I am holding my body like this,          without my hands:

my molars pressing into each other    like lovers       swollen with wanton desire

to let go

is to offer my body to the heaviness of memory

pleading to have me    the way the fire in a “sildenafiled” groin

pleads for succor

to let go

is to sink “in ocean blues” as the song portends

on arrival

to sink is to drown      to drown is to die

but I no longer seek to die

for already I have, with all of my body,                     died

the way things ought not to

II

Vancouver:   “on my own, I’ve been outgrown

                                    on my own, I’ve been outgrown”

I am left to sink in the scent of a lover that left

ask me how she did it…

I’ll say she put one foot before the other

and mastered the flight of childhood songs

fleeing the mouth of ageing children

Ask me how she did it…

I’ll say             I do not know what posture to assume

to stop the tears from overcoming my face