I lie in the dream of your breath. Your presence
is less defensive than your voice. Slipping between
softening weapons, I dissolve like glycerin
under your tongue. Waiting beneath constellations
with the strings pulled out, I stumble
on lost connections and phone jacks writing
darkness on the night.

The sun has not risen above the cradle
of the mountain. The light is unsure and
I am grateful for the shadow’s noise. Repeat to
me the chemistry of leaving, the misplaced
enzymes, and electrons free to rot.

The pieces of you left in me will
not fester into pearls; there is no luminous
wound burning. I’m sure a saint could make something
of this. I’m sure I could disguise myself.
The fear is you will find a god; the hope
is you will be able to pry those fingers
from your throat.




.

Out

The dust rises to the glamor of the wind,

I want to say diaphanous, I want to say hello.
This season is green but as flat as a
photograph.  I remember the dust devils
marching off the wall of the mesa strung
together like ballerinas, a determined violence.
The sun has clotted the salt of my eyes into
a crystalline glare.  I see auras of light
shifting red and blue.  You are moving in glory,
your howl will find me long after
you have come and gone.

.

Clinch

1

The 3 am highway is wet and darker

than the clouds hung with wasted light.

Headlights barely hold onto the

white paint. It is silent, the road noise is

missing. I am okay with the lie and the

smudged detail. The churning treads

of miles is lost between the middle

ground and the horizon. There is no

ritual to this, distance is a way of

holding onto time.

2

These sheets don’t remember shit.

The topography is soft. There are no fire

razed hillsides but the erosion is there

with its waiting for the skin of life

to start. This water like tendency to settle

into silence. We struggle to tear each

other apart, to reconfigure us into

something that can endure.

.