The Brooklyn Rail

In workshop I teach students how to balance
Big Feelings with imagery, sensory
detail etc.: put the pain in our hands
so we can learn the texture,
weight. Don’t tell me
“love,” tell me what it smells like.
I am, of course, a hypocrite, but they don’t
pay me enough to admit that. 
Is my money a concrete or abstract
language? If it’s a conspiracy,
where does the breath come from and who
has a share in it? Is my money the time
I have to spend on loving you? Do you feel it
when I breathe into my phone for you? Say
thank you, a hiss in the pipe.
At the poetry marathon a reader calls for
‘reparations for queer suffering.’ I wonder
how many would file a claim, picture billboards,
lawyers pointing: QUEER? you may be entitled
to etc. etc., call now. Is my queerness a concrete
or abstract language? Is it stronger or weaker than
the dollar today? If it’s a conspiracy, how long
can the same breath circulate
between us? I am scared
of hurting you with what you give me.
The same reader tells the audience
that the word conspire literally means
‘to breathe together,’ so now
you get this poem. On Christmas morning
we test negative while my mother’s ceiling
cracks like cartoon ice and water
gushes from the seam of the kitchen
lightswitch. In her building the convectors
are all connected, so when one leaks, it
floods a jackpot. Lucky us. I am reluctant
to describe you here in concrete
terms: I do not want to claim or decide anything
about you. Presumptuous to think
I have that power. Still, I often find that
one does the most damage when
unaware of the power they wield in
a transaction. This is what I’ve learned
about love so far. The reader understands
I am not talking to them, because
they are the reader and I have no power
over them: they are consuming me,
the safest play. So how else
can I repay you? I stay
at the marathon until 11 then run
uptown for the last bus which I miss by
seconds in slow motion, cartoon trying to
squeeze out every minute overdrawn
then tell my friend I might get sick
without my own bed. He puts me up and
unzips his backpack on the train to
show me a clove of garlic which he chops
into my tea. I buy breakfast in the morning to say
thanks. I get another bus home and listen to
a long interview while the trees set. The host says
thank you in five different ways, says 
“digest your work.” The guest thanks them back
once, a reassurance: this was time they chose
to give. The next episode begins
“I have spent so much time
with you,” and means “I have spent
so much time hearing and reading you
without your knowledge.” The guest laughs
in delight. The reader squirms,
or smirks, or puts me down. (In roleplay
this would be “godmoding”, which is
frowned upon: when the consumed decides
something about the consumer’s response,
a power grab.) What is the line
between what is spent and what is given?
What can I give you without hurting you?
If I see myself in this reckless position
of abundance, why then do I operate on
these little gasps of scarcity?
Once you name something it becomes
real, goes the fear, and once something is real
it’s in the market. Presumptuous to think
a poem can do that. Still:

I would like to give you something
off the books.