It could be the heart in its dark cave,

desire pulling and pushing and the silence

between, but my hands are the monsters here.

I need the flesh of another set of bones.

The warm blood of another land. A new scent

to follow along the trails of night. Here

is a hollow to fill with the purr of breaths

and the echo of heartbeats. Let's ignore the

hand-drawn barrenness of winter's cold and

press ourselves into the budding sparks

of this animal heat.

If you must, leave me to the feral darkness

and the dream of long limbs, feverish bodies

hellbent to defy physics and occupy the

same space. Wallowing in the musk. Let me sleep

until the orgy of spring has passed and the furnace

of summer burns rich with torpor. I will step into

the flames of the first sunset and dance between the

knife points of stars 

. 

How to sharpen a knife

The desert gleams seamlessly, the invisible

edge of a properly sharpened knife, drag it slow

across your thumbnail and feel the catch.

I watch the heat climb against the current,

returning to the refined truth of a purely

empty sky.

With circular motion grind against the clock, an

impossible repetition of lessening. The stone wearing

into an organic curve oily fingers caress. Like reading

the decay of a radio isotope or the meaning of a mountain

to the evening breeze. The long shadows of nighthawks

are miles away and still as hungry. The earth is fickle

and sometimes curves away.

The creases on the note you left are not hinges so

it stays folded in my wallet. A certificate of

authentication; some kind of proof I was wealthy

once. I have faith the gold will not blur or the edges

will not thin into air. There is a curl of steel that

must be broken off. Drag it along the strop until it

is keen. Drag it long, it will be keen

.

Respiration

1

The void of my chest fills witlessly with another poem,

pulverized bones and hammers writ large in the pneumatic

failure. This wild flesh of abandonment, feral and fine

toothed, burning under the weight of water. Faster than my

body can break your absolutes offer no absolution. I find

blood and release it.

2

The stryofoam squelch of snow and a puff of wing beats; a

breath held too long dissipating. The trees click like firing

pins. An empty pistol and a lost map. Is this a change in the

weather, these loose tongues skipping across the frozen sky?.

3

The dirt from your fingers fills my mouth, the small

skeletons of an arid sea swim into the pools of my lungs.

Sweetheart, you never could resist sifting through the

ashes of the dead for a prize of a powdered lead slug or a

trilobite; the mineral strains of a memory. There is no

salvage in the squalor you have graced

.

I put my hands through the ceiling. Stretch

my fingers between rafters cobwebbed

with memories. There have been rivers

finding their way through shingles, tar paper,

and misspent nails. Is it a question of scale or

of truth. Meanderings along joists to drip from

eaves unnoticed. Silverfish do not swim

though they leave a wake. But that is not what

I was looking for; there was a star I could not reach

or the spruce that rattles in the wind. Needles

bright with hidden light.

It does no good to find your name but I remember

your lips, the swirling jewel of darkness catching

at the corners. The bright burst of laughter and the

softly shaded words. The sun was burning hot for you

while the trees dropped their gold at your feet.

I betrayed myself with every glance. The cheap

perfume of memory lingers while the locks close

around a small breath

.

White lunged, the seagulls

swirl riding diazepam currents

and the last fumes of what I

have to offer. A rearview mirror

icecapade and a burned out

plastic soul. why does it have

to be the right kind of death?

.