Time Travel, or Today is my Past-Life's Yesterday

How many times before

Have I been nineteen? Skin taut on bones

Just this side of adolescence. 

When you knew me first I slapped queens,

Flirted with the guillotine while you

Vomited into your top hat. 

I chased taxis in a trenchcoat

And painted watercolors in Hyde Park

Where you dropped acid, 

The same sun burning us both. 

Once your fingers touched heat,

An adventure inside my body, our only witness

A robin's egg, a patch of brown grass. 

We've laid beneath this tree so long now. 

Centuries pas us, technology

Steals our bliss, but I kiss you anyway.

This might be tomorrow,

Or we might already be gone. 

Tiny Sunrise

I can't see your lips anymore,

Just a blue-black bruise, your

Too-early morning smile buried

In the shadows of drawn shutters.

I knew it was there, that smile, 

Because it flashed and the sun rose,

High and whole behind my head. 

I was only a silhouette to you, 

But I saw you then, perfect, before

The bleed-light of sunset tripped us 

Into midnight. Before

The lights died you blew me a kiss

And I caught it full on the mouth,

Licked off the sugar rim, bit it like

A fresh cherry, and felt a tiny sunrise

In places i'd forgotten.