midday meeting
friendship workload
right on time
for fake
it,

not taken for a
real boy-

all
strings,

salt drips
thru heart’s bricks,

inhale
raw throat dusk,

nothing floods
the well

but echoes become ash
once heard.

shad flies storming
skull flag
cabin

spy them orbit crumbs
now bone

just winks before mum
quilted over

door
to summer

scabbed on roof
of mind-

dreams of luna
in my
lap

enshrined.

hollowness
in being crowded
at taped off time of day
doorbell screams
i crank up screen
to shrink behind those
hard not to see
though i’m no better
crude and petty
palms pressed to skull moon
cold and sweaty.

you’re a chord change
in quicksand
song

rewound to skip
the fade,

smokescreens only delay
mirror’s gaze,

each surface
blemish-

a stroke of
genius,

both hands firmly on
your helmet,

i spit hornets
but half mean it,

watching a dove
land

in desert hand
of man

like shrine to
longing.

sun kissed music
is a portal

to nostalgia
sponged from pictures

scattered over
split foundations,

daisies strain through teeth
like train tracks-

pleas for pardon while
sweat hardens,

planting garbage in
dream gardens.