I love the blind river boy
because he stirs the sea inside of me
the tides of my soul he pulls forward
with his melted chocolate eyes
even after they have stalled

Unlike many men I've known
he is not afraid to cry.
(or to break or to bleed)
(or to be alive or to die)

He finds himself trespassed
under the familiar light
of the moon every night
drinks stale whiskey from the bottle
and plays his sad guitar with his lilac
picking fingers in the blue dark of a club
on the Lower East Side

He knows skin and pain and sorrow
What it means to say, “I love you,”
and what it means to mean it
what lost love sounds like and
what childbirth feels like and
what gunshot wounds look like

This boy has knowledge of a world
better than this one
He understands that wombs can turn
again barren in a day
that fathers can be absent
that children can be cruel
and that mothers don't always know best

Without words he can send me a piece
of his heaven
that pure magic that only he possesses
Beauty, Baby, Dancer

However, he is destined to be evanescent
blind river boys like that never stay long
and that is why I am writing this poem

In doing so, I am letting myself say good-bye