slowed to a halt:
a winter afternoon
or the sun’s departure in
the northern woods—
this is I,
and you as well with your heavy
eyelids and heavy hands.

we still are not light;
not the lithe feet of a
whimsical dance.

we are not the yellow light
in slits across the
wooden floor.

we are hot air
running thick in
the mouths of all who
dare stand in the heat

—yes!

for the sun has drained us of our green
but left us gold.

for this, we are enduring.
for this, we have tried
not to stab ourselves
with our own sharp spines;
the golden sword of
of thoughts.

time has passed. time has roped around the summer sun a noose.
dulling into an insipid tremor,
into a dull night that flags behind
the day, clinging on to what it can:
the edge of the grass, the
corner of the room.
spreads, rests; every day,
it seems, the clouds presents themselves
across the table of the sky;
laid out to be feasted & devoured,
   soaking with the lilac purples and, for dessert,
a red clementine sky.

Yet the man in the kitchen, after
a day of work,
humming over beets
                (a dripping hot crimson),
waits to sink his teeth into the
dinner plate;

behind is the
sun’s last reactive flinch to
her brief encounter with night.

it was not blissful
nor was it sweet.
not a plum—
dangling, juicy, & waiting
to be swallowed;
no, the days have been
seemingly deceitful.
rearing its head with delight;
throwing itself into the high of the
sky. but below, the smaller things,
they bend their spines deep to
bare the weight of
the plump sun, heavy with
her expectations.

I am 21
with more scars than years

a water soaked canvas:
prune

to be alone,
I'm still not sure.

So it shows:
branded.

Don't ask what I mean-
I cannot say with words
but instead

the cries
slither from a razor's edge:
joy.

I am prying myself
into time

into whatever is
more
than I.

back then,
it had a different smell to it

not rainwater or
ale on my pillow

I love you so much.

except so much is choking
sputtering
approaching gently
with your swollen shame
an unchanged bandage of time,
rotting

well promises are like roofs:
slanted, leaky,
tangled like a pair of legs
with scabs

I cannot tell you the way the ocean sounds, but
it is not the the wind roaring in waves
or
the sunset over durham, north carolina 
because i fell asleep, in the back seat
 with a face burnt through the glass. 

a night blinks,
starless.
chattering and according.

in night, I listen to the freckles
across your face.

here I am again, touching an echo.

I want to hold you the way
the trees do, the leaves
fall to be
caught
by grass.

the way you blink
makes me miss the
eyelashes
which fell selfishly
for wishes--

--take them back

bemoan
the daffodils-
death for
winter's advantage

carousing  from
beneath the
dandelions;
the world seemed lazy

please, honey
honey suckle, drip over
to me. to taste you would be
so delicately sweet
carnivorous  roses, the reason for
aphrodisiac desires

please, dear,
awake beneath willow
and wide and rest your curling head
upon the lap of the
lilacs-
unbeknownst
the queen of
backyard kingdoms.