Something I’m trying to hold onto

Always insisting 
 on the most extreme
  nothingness,

Bitter and afraid—
 not of being ignored,
  you've never been noticed—

But of having to wait
 in the incalculable queue,
  already dwindling and gray.

Unwilling to gamble
 living in vain (until when?)
  you want another nothing? Now?

Nothing is nothing,
 yet here you are:
  something I'm trying to hold onto.

Splashes of colored ink,
 papier-mâché fantabula,
  cryptic libido,

Note taken of the yellow-
 striped grasshopper
  who climbed over your shoe.

Afraid of inertia,
 quiet home days
  indistinguishable from graves.

But we have luck, not pine,
 we have four walls and more;
  we have time.

Though we're aging, yet to emerge,
 bottle up each vintage of art
  with experience and tenderness.

Each episode
 when I call you or you call me
  in excitement, look!

The cardinal in the backyard tree;
 the woodpecker
  rapping on the windowpane.

We are small,
 but we have small things
  that can sustain us.

Since we weren't born
 into great things,
  let us accumulate

These tiny, common
 miracles anyone 
  can have, yet these are ours

And ours alone;
 when you dream of blood,
  wake up beside me.