“You who had the honor of her evening / and by that honor had your own restored / now say goodbye to Alexandra leaving / Alexandra leaving with her lord”

—Leonard Cohen

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No, it’s not enough. I want your mornings

& I want your elbows. I want your guitar

in my bed. I want your mercury, your nose,

your vaulting astonishing hungry mind—

your anger. I want your anger, the ensemble

of your anger. I want to hold your memory,

your histamine. The 2am pharmacy journey

I want. & the time on the other side of that

door, I want that time. & a waltz around

the breakfast table. Your hair in the drain,

those purple question marks. Your seven-

hour skincare monologue. Your perfect 

pellucid snot hanging out of your celestial

nostrils in the street—my one, your snot!

For such snot the alchemists would offer

up their firstborns. & your leviathan alto.

& your jokes that make me laugh because

they are good & funny jokes, coupled as

they are with your wild clownist gestures,

gestures lost in your too-big jackets, clown

of God, nothing princess of my heart, you,

spinning in your shining circus. The mark

above the corner of your mouth—o soft o

sensational corner of your mouth! which

makes its geometric musics that bewilder

the minds of angels. Ah, & your telephone, 

somehow, inside the freezer, but how did it

get there? such questions are the questions 

I want. A life afoam with such questions—

oh, for that life! It’s not enough, I’m sorry,

to watch you leap into someone else’s arms

& place your hand on the back of their neck

in a darkened theater—I’m sorry, whatever 

it makes me, I am that thing. It’s not enough

to dance away the ghost with you then watch 

the starlight fall upon your shoulder as it turns 

toward another’s mouth. I want your shoulder 

to turn, forgive me, toward my mouth. So go 

become who you must become. I will be here, 

kneeling in the infinite corner, offering you my 

silly little life as if it hasn’t always been yours.

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