Release the Wheel by Wei-Ming Dariotis

Release the Wheel

Confessions of longing are inappropriate between friends
When, within reach is a diagonal,
a Market Street,
a slicing between things north and south.
Contours used to delineate the boundaries I’ve crossed:
I’ve left my own neighborhood
to get here.

Which is a moment of yielding, so I beg you,
“Gesture, something, anything; suggest
something.” Regret everything and forget
the directions
I gave you.

There are too many
one ways
with you strapped
in over there
and me in the driver seat
over here.

On the one side, there is a downtown
on the other, an
inability
to breathe.
I feel each cell
in my body like seeing stars
shimmer in cold air.
I concentrate on the Pleiades.

They are my heart, my Noe Valley,
Just concentrate;
One breath in, one breath
Out.

Don’t make any mistakes.

On one side is what
must be said. On the other
everything
I wish could be communicated.

Just let me drive you through
the City; let’s cruise the China
Basin, hit
Twin Peaks in a snowstorm
and we would find ourselves. One
breath in, one out,
and my hand, slowly
releasing