When I think about Angels
As I palm the glassy stem of your reckless omissions
My fingers fumble the radix of resonant mirth
And mirth’s interlude.
I buckle and swallow
Your elixir: heirlooms of
Disillusion and undulating ire.
In the hour of sanguinity I glimpse
My visage in shattered mirrors, see
Both cheeks bruised.
Still, drawers pull back to unveil crinkled parchment
To find again, and ever again, tidings tethered in truth;
Each wrought word forged in worship
For the boys I can only borrow.
2:34 am
There’s something in the hollow
Bump of bone
Against each ninety degree
That raises the edge
Of an ear in mid dream.
Somehow marrow’s intellect surrenders
To the verity that it isn’t
The stranger I’d been anticipating
I’d awaken to:
Calloused palm against moistened lips;
A barrel to the crest where wisps meet nape;
Or loot cascading from elbow crooks,
Strewn across the outer parts of the
Sheath constructed to deflect the villain.
Far worse:
Searching hands
Against darkened walls
That dissipate
Where they stand.
And the crumbling that existed
Before sound
As various versions of
Former selves
Collide to the linoleum.
It was me who landed
Beside bare foot heels
In the spot I’ve been
All these years
In alternate states
Of awe
And submission.
Modesty’s irrelevant.
Watch as my heart beats beside me.
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.
Feeding on Nectar
Elbow on the stovetop, jar in
Her left hand.
Amber icicles melted
From silver
As they met her
Tongue and catalyzed
The tales of a girlhood
Later supplanted
By too many confessions.
Smaller versions of herself
Alighted upon each utterance
With sodden lips and
Visages crimson from flight.
Let me tell ya’ ‘bout
The birds and the bees
And the flowers and the trees and
The moon up above
And a thing called love.
Years later:
My thoughts siphon
Widowed images:
Toes warmed in the crooks of arms;
The laughter that followed
My plunge from a virgin dock;
Cunning glances;
Stolen smiles;
Feet finding feet
Beneath murky waters.
I recoil
Then surrender
And finally I speak:
“I always thought
My children would know
The taste
Of the bees’ labor
With their own tongues.”
Droplets convene,
Gather momentum, and slide
Like honey down glass.
She sighs heavily
And offers
No response.
I lift my hand to my face.
It comes back sticky.
