grace

1
I’m sorry if I don’t have a flag to
pin upon your chest. These sheets
are white, isn’t that surrender enough?
You have already left messages
in my blood. I’ll forgo the luxury of war.
I shape my mouth around the sound of taps.
Can you translate?

2
I kick a fusee hissing past the edge
of the ravine, the red glare falling
into a darkness newly littered
with safety glass stars.
I sweep the road clean,
pushing the evidence under the
twisted ribbon of guardrail.
It held against the determination/need
of momentum.

3
The skin is complete, a bag
without release, a corpse swelling.
This season it is the plague,
something beyond the knife
but failing to dim the black hope
of this edge.




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