if there is a him

i want to paint him a world
where words don't hurt
where pores in fingertips
open to let the human experience
hiding behind art
into veins
pumping hard to his heart
red even without oxygen

because love feels
more important

i want to tell him that music
is everywhere
and everywhere is where i
want to be
because even though sometimes
new york
feels like the middle of the universe
there are so many other
unreachables
and the subway song
can take you lower
than delancey
and further than jamaica, queens
if you listen with something
bigger than your ears

the melody is a dance
like sex
but i like to sing along
so i need to know
the words first

and i want to read him
my favorite bedtime
stories
and show him that the oldest
art i know is
how to fold yeast
into dough
and stack the layers
like i'm building the
colosseum

i can't paint him into
a masterpiece
but there are no watercolors
like his eyes
so it doesn't matter
that my unskilled hands
would stumble over the
contours of his face

because he's already been
captured that way
and in song
and poetry
and on strips of celluloid
click click clicking away
through skilled projectionist
fingers

everytime someone tried
to project this
elevator starts too quick feeling
on to film or canvas or page or stage
it comes out in the same code
and the decoder ring doesn't come
in a box of cracker jacks

its in the corner of a smile
or the giggle between kisses
the foot resting on knee
for some reassurance
the half asleep arm
underneath lover's pillow

i don't have to write it down
for it to be art
i don't have to paint it
or make a mix tape
of people that have said it better
than me
but i want to try

because if woody allen
could make manhattan
and louis armstrong and ella fitzgerald
could dance cheek to cheek
if gustav klimt could immortalize
a kiss in layers of oil
than the least i can do is
write one little poem