Trash Night

~ Will Zell
from “Suburban Odyssey” 1981

One humid night on unkept lawns
prone to spells
from playing Heaven

Our day together
now exhausts
and seeps into nocturnal wells.

Lying still
our bodies lucid
speaking bones upon the Earth

Draining back
the mind
the muscle

revealing all
we’ve known
since birth.

Spotting rabbits out to feed
cocked to spring
at a moment’s rustle.

Here I’m drawn to be in need
by her side
beneath this sky.

And like these animals I get stunned
by movement…shapes…
immense and hovering.

For planets hang
tense and smothering
I sense the horrors.

Uranus swaying backward
amidst the company
of father’s Mars

brooding
over the same old quandary.
numb to here their children’s silent hollers

creeping about
looting
the alters.

I have no speak
in matters that complicate this death
of bond in tatters

for now I care to be
with you
defenseless… safe.

Every time you turn
your timid tease over
to my will.

In fearless haste
the loosening ground
around me

dissolves yet another
ill conceived suggestion
unspoken.

With brilliant eyes
alive with hope
resting on me

I toss myself
into those pools
where the moon reflects

rippled by your dancing
around this question.
Closer

I count your hairs
naming every one
‘till you say,

“Don’t study me
Move!…Now!
God is a verb!”

Her words
dispatch
the nature of Uranus.

The clever child
spinning unseen around the world
tinkering.

Despite
we
who author this night,

in the curvature of her spine
bend the forces
that bring me to being.

And there I touch
at the base of this belonging
to have nothing to do with no one.

A passing light rounds the curve
and skirts across
the dew prismed lawn.

Lying quiet
me and you
wait for what is never gone.

We free our Love on trash night
when suburbs dump domestic stools
and the smugness of purity prevails

As houses set their garbage alter
we vow this night
to set our love on water.

un-damned if we do –
damned
if we don’t.

Since
through sleepy lies
we’ve poured

our hearts
through family ties
spanked by dreams

through the duress
of mothers
abandon

all lowness
where our water searched
We’re due.

Box flaps rudder the wind kicking up.
An overcast blurs the moon
and the flickering pinheads.

A sudden haze drops like a lid
while neighbors in shadow
still lug about

stacking black sacs
like a late night departure
piled two high

along the shoulder
hissing
like a dying marriage.

Now this humid night on un-kept lawns
prone to swells
this sea of grass

This night we’ve earned
with one collapse
to waste streams go our ego.

Flowing too fast to trace
Tasting to great too slow
Licking salt off twisting torsos.

Rolling bloodworms
in the night crawling up the sidewalk
squirms down. The black drains.

Spirits hum
with upturned jaws answering
cry whispers, moist and heavy saying

“I can feel..
the drops of rain…
running down our skin”.

In holy longing she draws me in.
Be her comfort.
Shed my sadness.

Here within mechanics rule.
Our hands like sprockets
weaving chains of tightening grip

less escapes that cycle back
to where we started.
Now bowing tame

Our body liquid
derails inward to our sleep
where all afloat on that watery same.

Love cries like giving rain
as an overcast breaks
a gentle sweat

And clouds extract
a sweetness as all restraints
we can forget

The plant musk
wet bark on standing shadows
and the bricks steaming bitters

Rain upon our face
and the wind
as it litters

Hips sink in the chocolate soil.
Slowly
swelling

street curb wakes
fingers out and trickles
like aftplay off its course.

This passion in our nature hoarse
that voids this street
and floats its empty boxes out to sea

Let the sky crest and bust
until there is nothing left
of you and me.

Something knows!
and all we were ever made for.
And I meet this something every time.

I fall
into the flow
of our Love being.