What do you do when you are burning up from inside;
the wind leaves your mouth dry and hot gulping for air
or in the metro squeezed between strangers at five pee em
you feel their touch, even through layers of cloth
it smolders your skin;
or when you hold somebody else's child and realize that
yours would be born in december;
when you wake up with a gasp from a dream where
someone loved you to rain showering in your face
or when even in your dreams they cast their eyes sideways
uncomfortably, pulling their hands out of your desperate grasp;
what do you do
when this sweet, heavy, unbearable, empty laughter boils in your chest
so easy to turn into tears;
what do you do
when you want to let go
but there is nothing to;
then how do you lean out the highest tower and scream:
i love
and the word falls flat on the street
a darkened spot on concrete, trampled by the busy people
of this city
without body or content;
what do you do
with all this restless heat
that leaves nothing behind, not even coals or ashes...
and you know
tomorrow you will drown
