Two Thousand Lilacs

1.
Spiraling toward the sound of water, I could not lead
or understand the park map.  Among the budding lilacs,
I found myself climbing gentle slopes,
                                       trying to understand
what is common to us, what brought thousands
to walk these paved paths immersed in lilac.  Moving
                                               in rhythm
with your hand enclosed in mine, you told me
there was a top to this hill, a place to look and see
the city
                                       in which we live.
I could not lead, and you had no idea
where we were at least once or twice that afternoon.
Lost
among pine trees, you unbuttoned your denim shirt
then removed it
               revealing your shoulders
against the sun for the first time all summer.  Lilac
salts
clung to your collarbone.  I collected them later
                                               that evening
as thirst idled, as we whispered old songs,
our shadows taut in aching prayer.

2.
Kissing in the shadow of your spine, I trail a few
steps behind,
admiring you,
a flower, the only one I touch.
Kissing in the shadow of your spine, I was conscious
of my mind absorbed in scenery—
heaven, anonymity,
a comfort for lovers like us.  I don’t know how this
happened, or
why I envisioned entering heaven as something like
spiraling that hill,
but I found myself memorizing everything—
a bird’s song, tiny birthmarks,
constellations on your shoulders,
the sound of water.
Later, as my lips traveled up vertebrae,
I pictured you walking ahead
reaching your hand back to me as we ascended the final
set of stairs.
Later, my lips worked up your back,
                       beneath your clothes, beneath your name.

3.
Holding you as we lay to sleep, purple and pink petals

                                               remain in my nose and mind.  It is dark
and I can’t see anything but the shadow
of your body.  I inch there, pinching petals with open
palms,
refusing to end the day.
Drifting back a week, I think of your mother’s mother
                                                       walking
the paths we did, her steps recorded on eight mm film.
 Silent, black and white,
the images unfold: her smile breaking through bushes
and trees, the way
your grandfather loved
                       to be in the way of the camera.
Wandering back to Highland Park, my mind
                       thinks its found a way to preserve this day:
delay night.

4.
How many times did we see that little barefoot boy?
His dark skin, a fire,
       a voice, an angel?  Running through the paths, I
thought
he was an orphan
               without knowledge of his mother.  We know
each other, we who were never breastfed.

5.
Returning to the darkness of our bedroom, I turn away
from you
so I can sleep.  I can’t face you and forgive myself
for ending a day
so sweet as today.  Not touching you, I wander past a
pantheon of faces
                                                       only to break their hearts.
I break their hearts
               only to show you
                               that you are my country, my Seoul,
                       my wreckage.
  I remember the way I felt when your shoulders crushed
the sun—
how your lemonade was sour for lacking water,
how that little barefoot boy looked at us,
how wonderful it felt to be lost
in this city, its tiny buildings rumbling in the
distance.

6.
In this darkroom, I hang pictures for you.
  I am sorry
       that I cannot lead us to heaven—you will have to do
that, but
                               I will remember
napping under trees,
                       walking through a park holding hands,
holding centuries of pain
between palms
                       as we kissed on bridges whose structures could
never hold
                                       the wildness of our love.
  I don’t know why
               this lifetime
is made of molecules of suffering.
I don’t know why I handed you the lyre, and
can’t say why I ask you to put bandages over all my
cuts, those snakebites.
A snake-bitten bride, I carried you
                               and your song
                                               over the gaze of disbelievers
  who could not understand how we were tapped by clouds,
                                               draped with affections we neither knew of
                               or could deal without,
                       with affections so deep
that I am sure enough I am a man alive
                               2000 years after The Way was made, 2000 lilacs
enough
to need nothing
but your body over mine.