“Helsinki, 1993” (2020)

He is a water man;

he lives between two worlds,
on the rusty train.

You see him in the parklot of the mallmart,
in a light snow, under the moon.

You take off your whole shirt at once,
and you say you’ll take his ashes with you
in your cup.

It’s cold tonight
(it’s winter),
so he takes you in a boat to his apartment,
and defrosts you with his hands.

His serpentine body pulls up to you
undercover,
and you’re resting in the branches
of a tule tree.

He teases you with a window
into your living eyes,
or a guided tour of the sleepy port city
in the middle of the night,
where he lives.

He takes off all his clothes,
he puts on a suit and tie;

he takes off all his clothes,
and kisses the clouds in his window,
with his lavender lipstick on,
and he laughs.

He takes off all his clothes,
except for a pair
of his turquoise colored underwear;

they match the ocean,
the sky sometimes,
and the rims of his glasses
he left on a pillow
by your right cheek.

He makes a fresh pot of coffee
for everybody,
and screams in sacred fractals
and New York City subway train hallucinations;

his neighbors are all synesthetes,
and they can see everything,
while they’re sleeping.

His body is cold,
until it’s not;

he places his face under the sheets
and licks your legs with his hot tongue,
bathing in black coffee
fresh from the pot.

He kisses you gently
with his tongue in your mouth,
and yours in a river;

he made it, before he was born,
in his sleep.

He dances around his apartment
to the song of the lonely streetlamp.

He files his nails
like shaved ice
melting on pink sand
on a beach
in Gemini season
in the evening;

and he takes you to see the shipwrecks.

His body is cold
(it’s winter).

He says he wishes there were
a 24 hour diner
you could walk in, together,
have a fresh pot of coffee,
watch the local politicians
scream at television
with their brains off,

and you might even have a chat
with the waitress
about psychedelic drugs and life;

but you’re going to the shipwrecks.

You say you saw your father
through a window in the local morgue
the other day,
staring, lobotomized, blankly,
near the corner of a wall;

you were surprised to see anyone you knew
in this town,
except your water man,
who you always see,
wherever you are.

He holds his hand
with his hand,
in the palm,
and takes you to the shipwrecks.

You can see his breath like a rainbow
under a bossanova street lamp
on the ground.

You take turns sipping
his purple hot chocolate mug,
with English tourist accents on deck
in case a cop spots your open container.

The mug is all painted
with black lipstick stains
from his past life.

He says he still does magic
with it sometimes,
but only for good.

You crawl into the ship together
and stare through the clouds in the window
at a waxing moon,
next to the skeleton of the captain.

You say you saw the captain
through a window in the local morgue
the other day,
staring, lobotomized, blankly,
near the corner of a wall;

you were surprised to see anyone you knew
in this ship,
except your water man,
who you always see,
wherever you are.

He holds his hand
with his hand,
in the palm,
and you’re warm again.

He takes off all his clothes
and his glasses,
and stares through the clouds in the window
into the water.

He sees Sedna’s fingers faintly
swimming around down there,
and he cries.

You embrace him with your body
and your arms all around him,
and you kiss him on the lips three times,

and you whisper in his ear,
with your saltwater soul
spilling down your cupbearer heartroads
into the infinite black:

“It’s almost over.”

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