Marc Nair

Mane

These are good hours, brushing muddy thoughts
through short-bristled minutes at the stables.

The horses are mostly calm. Apple-eyed, with
casual swish, their glossy mane surely one of

God’s better ideas. Not for such anomalies

as the capybara or the undecided dugong,
this covering glory for battle-worthy beasts

that hold a king’s carriage, and for us who
canter on old polo ponies, ever concussed

with joy.

Postal Code

 

What is the address for the stars?

On street corners,

I am punching old numbers into a broken

cash machine with its empty dollar lungs.

The satellites stop over heavy cloud.

They cannot pinpoint your curling eyelash,

the laughter in empty corners, this map

of a cartographer’s wet dream.

I am standing on the outside of quiet alleys,

knocking on closed doors of skin. Your body

is no compass;

it is all deserts

and solitude.

Where do I leave a message?

I am writing letters

and forgetting where you live.

It is raining too much these days,

bodies need bodies to stamp dreams on.

I am listening to a piano playing itself,

a chromatic beachcomber picking minor

seashells;

we roll like

dissonant waves.

I sing to an empty house.

 

What is it about some songs?

They make you want to wail with them,

the chorus a wound up engine screaming

night, an angry riptide, drowned hearts of

a scarred universe where I am

playing on these four chords, some found

melody stolen from the throat of a bird.

I would like to kiss you,

to give you all my attempts to speak,

but I cannot find the way to your mouth,

and your words spill out like a nest,

twigs and leaves

building the language

of a different city.

No wonder I cannot find home.