show me where the shadows go when sleep fails to find you
aquarius rising, estranged from your own strangeness
sitting at saturn’s table in saturn’s house
with a lot of spirit, but no table salt
across the rear window, in leo, venus gives good grand gesture
the texture of mars in an air sign after a season in mud
your breath on my cheek, like your beard on my belly,
puts the taste of communion wafers on my taste buds
sun and moon in virgo, blushing and glancing everywhere
except each other, like the frantic embraces under the all-black sky
of the past few days never happened. why is it so hard to
say i like you. i could blame the icy fixed-air rising
the way we blame the weather. jupiter in aries, forgive me:
i have not sinned as much as i could have. libra mercury,
i’m not a peacemaker. what would you have me inherit
if wisdom is not in my stars, if my body is an eel,
a slippery fever, looking in the mirror,
finding the vegemite on the kitchen sink,
too much chiron, not enough butter,
winds that hit these ears like memories,
kingless sand castles that know too much.

i wanted to be polyamorous but this capricorn pluto
led me to believe that love without ownership wasn’t real
it’s un-pc to say that love and belonging don’t have
some kind of relationship, maybe not monogamous,
but not-not either. not texting back is a red flag
but not as much as playing the lead role
in a sex dream under neptune retrograde.
if i let my heart take the lead, my feet might grow dragonfly wings
the sound of your voice on a call to your mother
turns the skin beneath my toes into velvet
i would hold you like a fragrance i wished i could photograph
i would have you like seawater on mushroom on ceviche
in a pink attic on a blue four-poster bed
stained-glass window, the universe looks more mute
than it is, a DJ savage & tender & long on finger
the animals hear, here i am, pretending