Uncorked

It’s something like rising

and dressing in the finest gown

at the hour that death portends;

flesh braces

for the laceration

sure to accompany the blow of

an innocence formerly mislaid in

the cyclonic splendor of found self.

I wonder if you know that

I’ve borne you

in sinew and thought

through nights of dreams

that promised reconciliation, and days

of adulthood that witness retribution’s ruin of

an everything that once was.

When I awaken, I vomit ancient truths; shuffle

with knotted fingers through the debris of

our years, doubling as

entrails twine around educed trepidation

of grocery aisle scans,

perked ears amid droves of vacuous visages

and waiting…

Years ago I searched and discovered that

we both journeyed the parallel paths we had taken

our maiden, stumbling steps

down together.

You liked Whitman as much as I had learned to,

and thirsted for the fervor found in Kerouac.

I read somewhere that the only people for you 
were the mad ones,

and thought: we had been 
roman candles that exploded like spiders across the stars.

It’s that detonation’s residual crater I explore each time

I pass two young girls on foot,

or worse: in uproarious laughter

that brings flush to cheeks, and hands

to jagged knee caps.

I wonder whether I’ll ever lose the envy for those

who speak unassumingly

across phone lines - before, between, after

the six o’clock whistle’s three second delay.

And my tongue lurches back

from impetuous serrated words,

and my soul cringes as

the me we once created and knew

seeks moments unpreserved due to lack.

As years go on, I persist searching likely places and find you hiding in none.

Most days I keep to looking for you 
where you left us: dusty upon the shelf.

For I have come to learn

it all turns out nothing like they say;

it’s no fine wine,

but I pull it down anyway.

And though most often the words I speak are null,

when I finish, the girls

on our pages are breathless

from the recognition

that fiction is their only plausible truth.