turning blue

i am okay with unkept promises 
but please make them marvelous.
tell me we are going to 
have breakfast with angels 
if i will just come to the corner store
& buy you a diet coke & slim jim.
tell me you booked us a flight
to the north pole. tell me 
i will not be cold at all there
& that my blood is useful.
tell there is a church without
any gods. tell me 
you are not really a boy but 
a minor god here on earth
to make me a statue. once i looked
in a bathroom mirror in january.
it was bryant park. i was with
someone new & it was not working.
i saw my lips turning blue.
they were like tumbled beta fish.
scales & all. i promised myself
i would keep walking until
i reached the station. until i could
come home & be whatever kind of
baseball bat you needed.
i didn't do that. i stood at the station
& killed time. i lied to you when i promised
i was doing okay. i did see an angel.
it had the face of a subway engine.
mangled & ripe. it said,
"go ahead" which terrified me.
i wanted to plead, "i need you
to tell me to hold back."
promise me we are already husbands
& this is a story we tell 
at dinner parties & bond fires.
you live inside an acorn on my desk now.
i never wanted to be an orbit
but this is what we do. all life
grows in circles. ring around
a tick bite. round headlights. 
you knocking on my door. it is
the dead of night. you're saying,
"come & be blue with me."