Remember my voice on sunny days
When laughter carries on the breeze
Kissing your lips, tickling your hair
Like my fingers would when they were yours, or
Butterflies that fled our mouths when
We found courage to speak.

Screeching silence whispering
Truths your lips won't form
Letters from shapes to messages
Unsent piled high under the desk
Where secrets are swept, clean
Unseen by judging eyes
Stamped with footprints,
Soles ***** from creeping in beds
Of flowers in gardens your feet
Should never have sought
Sowing seeds you can't water.

Spirits riding winds
Spurred by past days spent living
Without being present
Shrieking   in the night  
Beating branches against window Shutters       begging    slumberers
Please wake,  please wake.

White crane fishing trackside for
Vestiges of nourishment from
Newark muck and Secaucus slush:
            Be aware;
Three-eyed tadpoles live in these waters,
Breeding alongside rotting corpses--
Mob jobs gone wrong and various
Plastic garbage.

Pulse;     life     lives    here
Clicking it's heels on  gum-speckled sidewalks    between     sirens and
Cigarette butts spouting carbon, Diamonds   at the right temperature,    
Polluting    for the time being
                    Wasted
In  drunken stupors under
Bright lights and the
                 would-have-been
             dreams of a has-been.

Pause        hairs on neck standing
Who, what is that impending, lurking
Shaking hands at intersections with
Pedestrians    blissful   on their way

At night alone walking,  strange
Steps    echo                 disembodied
Following       knowing    stalking and

In the haze of city street lamps
A figure fogged in passing glance
Laughing in alleyways while
I run to live one more day.

Eyes on me.
I know they wander   thigh  to   thigh
                    Girls passing by in skirts
      shorter  
                  than
                         ­ mine
Eyes on the prize wave goodbye to
               Pretty girls passing by
Please let me be the
                                    pretty
                     ­          one
                    tonight.