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.

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.