Daryl Hall is My Boyfriend by Erica Lewis

erica lewis reads two poems from her latest collection, daryl hall is my boyfriend, published in December by Barrelhouse Books.

The Silver Leaves The Drone of Clever Talk

“you look like one of those moon girls”
how we’re cut
with a wide-eyed sincerity
made soft
suffering from the winter bends
oh there’s a river that winds on forever
the emotional framework of being
stretched between two opposite poles
when people aren’t how you remember them
as photographs in the cul de sac
you’re my castle, baby
deep down somewhere
i have some beautiful memories here
god loves you when you’re dancing

and we danced in the river water
i’m very glad that we were able
to make time for catching up
it’s that ancient love that just moves along
that beta love
painful or exquisite or both
listening to the same shit
over and over again
love is to die
love is to not die
i don’t want to have these 
conversations again
artifact by artifact
i remember now
i am my mother’s age
doin my best patti smith

it is the year of the horse
your mouth looked [so] cool in the light
a choir of echoes
rising in our bones, our breath
we have too much history
in the same specific place
try not to look so young
life is no longer happening the way we want
say history has ended
you are not only you
and i am not only me
it changes even in the remembering

Don’t You Leave Me Sitting Here In Atlanta
for Dan Thomas-Glass

the act of remembering wrongly
even now we want our parents’ lives
ought to know we’re just playing house
these moments kill me
to that depth of hurt and happy
and all the anxiety and vulnerability that is part of the mechanism
it’s like standing on the side of the highway, trying to make out words
yelled at you
from the open window of a passing car
we fall into winter feeling cold
i plan to slow time, stash it in inescapable 
either way
i can’t tell when to exhale

my feelings come between us here
i mean the act not the weather
we all have problems
it’s not that simple to stay under the pitch
you walk around saying “i have no home” and that iteration becomes
your home
…throwing the songs into the abstract pile & playing them while
driving home in the snow…

ok that’s how it feels
to hold us till we’re older

but the timeline of trees
of all physical endings
of things to come
of memory as current
perception not nostalgia
each blow recalls the others
and so much has happened between the time i wrote this
and the construction of what we really love
so you should dance if you want to
knock on wood          this is a lullaby for you

Excerpted from daryl hall is my boyfriend by erica lewis. Copyright  ©  2015 by erica lewis. Excerpted by permission of Barrelhouse Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.