I had actually forgotten– last night in a daze before sleep, I decided to kick it into retro with some “automatic writing”. I use scare quotes because I mean less “messages from Mars” and more “high school English class”. Putting pen to paper while barely awake, without thinking about what word may follow the next. So, unedited, the notepad resting on my sheets:

  it does not hurt to take a walk around the neck of night, at times the whistling birds of home fall silent, dropping feathers in the porcelain bowls old Italian matrons.

  "Look,“ I turn to you and said–

  The leaves are losing their shapes, the stars are cascading like watermelon seeds

  the sky is full of children, small and racing

  the heavens are a baseball diamond parking lot

  dirt and anticipation

  "Look,” I said, “do you know her?” We both turn to look at him, long fingers on her long coat and you said Let me lay my arm upon your shoulder a while.

  Night closed in on us like an Atlantic wave. We hushed.

  I sent you a letter full of pearls but the wind caught them, scattered them across all the dirt between my hands and your mouth. Small trees sprang up, and creeks, and the drive to adventurous conversation, strangers passing through suddenly moving their lips to express our anticipation.

–

Then I thought I’d make a quick attempt at reworking the above text to see what would happen:

It does not pain me, to walk around the neck of night
when whistling birds of home fall hushed
feathers dropping into old Italian porcelain

“Look,” I turned to you
the leaves are losing their shapes
the stars are children, watermelon seeds

Night, the great Atlantic wave
floods the baseball diamond over me
and I hush against your dampened coat

Wind scatters your letter full of pearls
feeds the dirt between our apartments
trees spring up nourished by your mouth

Strangers passing through
catch on our frequencies
and feel our words, knocking at their teeth