what are we?

we are like a
mirror over a pool
gas lamp in a museum
satellite in the starlight
hardwood floor and a stool
made from the same oak
the inseam in a cloth
on a broken cloak
with a petal of heather
a word before a thought
the portrait in an empty room
a lost mausoleum
mindless wings of a moth
collected in the small of a broom
connected but not
together.

wind

and so long ago there was a throng of blinding
water for any chance of many circumstance to build
a silent guild to put my heart on a shelf for
myself and wait for it to fall like a plate
onto the concrete and so i waited, complete,
empty, elated, until the last glimmer would fade
in the shimmer of a moment i could describe
as an omen. a final sliver before the drive
and a small tumble into an open ravine of numbness
and i wonder
how did i get here to be alone
with no fear
of no blunder.
and when you turn over a new leaf what you feel
isn't grief, or a beginning, or a real closure
not an exposure to the truth or sinning or your pain
it's what was never there, what was never yours
what you didn't deserve in your youth
and what could never deserve your rain.

On Spring and Other Endings

in March there was an unfamiliar heat
the sun and smog out of each other's reach
the flaxen grass had loosened from the sheet
and caught off guard like martyrs in their speech
old foliage sat exposéd as the snow
dissolving in its filth took in the mud
and sucked itself into the sewage flow
like giant worms emboldened by the flood

a winter sunburn. nothing to compare it to
brash and numb like a summer in heat
that can end without remains
a burial in no coffin
but on the other side of year
my skin is still embroidered with your touch.

Echo

A week ago I screamed
Hoping I was far
And today it came back
To me
To tell me.
How little I have moved.
How little I have forgotten.

Honeygold

When you're ripe, you're yellow
And when you're green, you're red.
But here you are, freckled with
Raised moles
Whose origin I don't even
Want to know
All over your skin
Like a shoulder in summertime.
Peppered with pink, blushing
Around your bruises.
And what even is your name?
Even as I take a bite from your flesh
And it bites back on the side of my tongue,
You say to me
"Honey, I'm golden."

Place

A locale will not
Change with the people
That flow through it
Like filaments
Or fibers that get caught
In its own memories
And linger before
They release themselves
Further.
There is no sieve that fits
Every particle that could
Want passage and so
Some leave behind their
Carcasses to show that
They were there
And never left.
The East Coast accent scares me
And when I hear my flight attendant
I cry for everything I've lost.

Feeling

Nothing to say
About loneliness when
Your skin feels it so
Much that you retract
Into numbness