Speciosa

I’ve known love 
three days fasted
like autumn charcoaling
cold in Baltimore 

brownstones, young
like fawn like ash
but how should I define
disaster? I’ve known

love in hospitals
fighting, over posole
over Wyoming
and Spain, like mesas, como
cuerpos en cueros; I’ve known

care in half
empty lots, care
in covidian frames
care like carbonate

I’ve known care
often in its
wanting, she held her hair
between my fingers

but you are something 
else, familiar, a rolling
stop, a sunkissed neck
you are, like me, hand-to-mouth
plural, partial agonist

like wide, green
lakes, like starlings
or sunshowers inside
cathedrals and malls

and I’m not 
one to refuse
malachite wings, lost homes
for those who lost homes