and with each step she takes, she shrinks

frighten her
feel her
from the edge of the web

from the trees spitting sap
into the hardest to wash places
of your psalm scribing nails

fall into the murmur
if it is the heart
"I am, I am, I am," as Plath put it
beep, beep, beep, goes the machine
like "you are, you are, you are"


you are
⠀

her sweater was white.

white.

I go in, I come out

I go in, I come out, I go in —

white,

white,

white,

white,

red,

red,

red,

red,

black,

black,
­
black,

black

my hands smell like
solvents and

her sweater

was white

I go out to smoke
go into the egress
between these two shops
make my way into that little artery

the vein that splits open for air,
like mine for love
onto the path that opens like a mouth
just to consume

because people walk all around
sprawling about,
in and out of stores
carrying their crumbs and things
and it could be like
I'm on the promontory that overlooks it all, on the infinity of the outside edge, the border of glass, and they are so small,
such that they're like ants,
only I'm the ant

and they are not small at all

and her sweater

was
white

so why is it red?

was it always red?

I go out, I come in
I come out, and go in
take the whole cigarette in one long, torn up draw
and the next time I see her, her sweater is black

was it always black?

so I do it again

I wait

eye the clock

a group of five twelve times, thats a minute, but five times twelve times for sixty times to be nine and every hand just moves along, and

I take another smoke break
and my veins are curling in on themselves because
I go in

and her sweater

is red

and I can't stand it because the faucet in the bathroom is burning hot
no matter how far I tilt it to blue
but the metal is so cold against my palm

and the broom makes this terrible sound on the floor, like it's groaning to stop
and every time I look away and look back again, her sweater is

white,

white,

white,

white,

red,

red,

red,

red,

black,

black,
­
black,

black

and it's not the flickering light above me
that ticks on and on like the clock because
we're some one hundred paces apart
and whether she's in the sun of the storefront
or under the cold fluorescent bulbs
the color of her sweater doesn't swap, I realise, unless I blink

so I don't blink when she catches my gaze
and I don't blink when I wrap up my shift alone
and I don't blink when she's saying "good evening,"

and I don't blink the whole way home

when you are waiting
as passive as the glass you drink from
calcined, corralled
into your adequate shape

stand,
skin of your temples limned
by fluorescent,
until your legs ache
and while you are waiting
biding your time until they lift their heads

every disparate form you've taken

sends off their own light
a wild sunbeam toward each coast
broad, bolder-*****
your spine the rock entrenched here, there, wherever

those loafers become one with the floor
melt into it, you
the offshoot of spit
from a rallying cry;
the last good drop of Pentecost
pooling into the terrazzo

forks scrape against plates
along lips, along tongues

those moving things
that seem to go and never stop

strike right through the quiet
the mind is futile to create

quick, cold prongs
into that special-occasion steak

words come out,
lips curve upward,

and the laughing pressure's on

it's automatic

"ha, ha,"

a grind of the knife,
stroke of the napkin

applied knowledge
purely reactive

sort of movement,
sort of laughing

post meridiem,
sleep

schemata dream

and
ante meridiem

public transit
seethes

''de anima"
but
on soul
you do not have

psychotic

numbers
in everything

you are not living,

thing.

and without much provocation
the cloud burst overhead, lent so weary to its own weight
the small boy froze, gripping the handle of someone else's umbrella so tightly that his knuckles turned white, quietly trying to assure himself that he could survive
until the rain would calm to a gentler drizzle
though, that was not the case as soon as imagined, as the heavy pour droned on amaranthine, despite best hopes and wishes, and the soft, shaken murmurs of a song pleading it to retire for... some indefinite amount of time
so he settled under a nearby storefront, sitting damp and cold,
biting his fingernails and tensing as he waited for the sobering flashes, the booming clacks of spring thunder that were sure to round the horizon as the storm made its way, and...
crash! bam!
he quickly lowered his head, recoiling and pulling his knees to his chest.
he supposed this was it, this was how he would die.
crash! bam!
he let out a low sob
and in a single moment, quite like the faint visions of life played out tauntingly in front of eyes in the moments just before death,
he recalled kicking his brother and making him cry
he recalled taking the juice box and not saying "thank you"
and he recalled affirming to his mom, after her rigid instruction, that, yes, he would be back before it would start to rain.

his thrill against the widow's cord;

snakes his fingers in the web

eight aching, crawling branches

where his hands have met her legs

six sick fingers on the mend

I let the wind come

and do nothing about it

I let the wind come,

and do nothing about it

feel a woman, ate up
by sea

all the color
in her face

bled into ocean
free

swimming
untraced

pink
for rosy cheeks

and lilac
for painted nails

and her husband, raising sails
while she shrieked

how she shrieked
for shoreline
how she screamed
for his eye

"look at me."

"it's between the world, or me."

I drop the gun at my feet,
drop to my knees

and the sun swallows the earth up.

a feeling I can't name

as he exits, excellently;
as the ball rolls
and the moon hugs the tide

hand
hesitantly on the helve

the wonderment,
the idiot

who he's exchanged a few words with

from behind the dotted line
that I envision

the upswing of human fear
and tending to be naked in it

if one thing
if it was all my heart had really thought for,
aside from to be useful, in my adult years

do I get, also, for it to end well?

the way envisioned
to climb over the dotted line

the wonderment
at him
the idiot sits
twiddles her thumbs

sinks in and in

I must be a child
waiting to be pulled to the air

if it will never feel quite right to want
I'll wait until I am wanted

and if the moment never comes,

who do you think I am?

I have only been sincere

who do you think I am?

dragging your feet in the sand
cramming fingers in both ears

to stop that noise, that mess of cymbals
but you know where that noise is coming from

I want to see your hands
I want to see you sweat
force them
to be still

I wonder who you think I am
I have only been in love
some poor spectator, through this dark glass

I want to see your eyes
I want to see you take it in

off your tongue
onto my lips

I am so loud
cry and beg and cry some more
you withdraw
compos mentis of enlightened quiet
like
slamming anvil of beyond-earth silence

I only offered myself
bits and pieces, thoughts and thoughts
a nail, a hair, a leg torn off

thrown into the hole we bought

but what sepulcher returns in good
and who do you think I am,
and what have we done to be in love,
and where will I go when we use it up?

from behind the dotted line
that I envisioned

the upswing of human fear
and tending to be naked in it

to climb over the dotted line

to sink in and in

speaking as a child
understanding as a child
thinking as a child
waiting to be pulled to the air

if it will never feel quite right to want
I'll wait until I am wanted

and if the moment never comes, I