juice drips from
a bite mark
just as healing
begins,
blue bruise beneath
the words
i lose..
wiping wetness
from my
chin.
rhyme
i’m not the songbird
you reach
out to
on mornings void
of sound,
to lift you from
same worry
that frames your
wistful frown,
though i may lend the warmth
you yearn for,
when you think to
turn around.
you’re perfume
in a sealed
room,
intoxicating but
too much,
for these overburdened
senses
long grown raw to
phantom
touch.
you’re the prayer
that haunts,
dead to years i’ve run from
in my head,
to reinvest, to reinvent,
to crawl back
under bed.
let’s conjure
moon,
feel up this
room
and candle a
corner,
shame we’ll bite off
too much fire
in the guise
of fun
for ones with southern
desert tongue.
i may have left
a hole
where no hole
should
be,
i know not where
it goes,
for it’s too dark
within to
see..
and yet entices
me.
from saggy swing
in curbside
park,
i watch kids choke a tree
to see crows
scatter..
gather, then return
to feast,
from the giving hand
of an unfed
man.
can’t carry you
with me,
and can’t help
but look
back
to see if you’re
wind
or strewn gravel on
train tracks.
burst pipe in the
basement
floods a living room
grown stagnant,
photos float apart
as if to
flee..
a cigar box gorged with
dust and tears
long buried
in me.
it’s no wonder
i avoid,
so consumed by
city noises,
the hollow crunch
of beer
cans,
dank streets lined
with heat
lamps
leaving me fake
tanned,
while what i seek’s
a whispered
breeze
to ferry me
to sleep.
hands in the garden 
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