sleepy, feverish
smiling nonetheless
she lay me down
with almost loving concern
i offer money
feigned anger with humor in a look
leaving again to get groceries
possibly turn a trick
this florence nightingale Christmas ******
stays and nurses me for a week
i remember meeting her
in a bar in Seoul
we liked the same jazz
not a word of each other's slipped away unoticed
nor understood
she was authentic and made of beauty
light played around her
we never tried to-ruin it
she was leaving i could sense it
i put a thousand in her purse while she fixed her tear stained eyes
i couldn't fix mine

i met eyes with myself in the mirror this morning
we had a moment where time seemed to freeze
i saw that he'd got back his bearings
he saw I'd filled back up with light
we leaned back and laughed then kept staring
as yesterday limped out of sight
dragging away its bag of dry bones

him is at the end of the sentence
him knows at the end of this day
whatever the verdict
now it
never mattered
him's debt is undoubtedly paid

her left out the parts with her name on them
him knew what was his just the same
none of that mattered
not where it landed
at least that's what she said she said she said

now is not the time for tears
bind whatever is broken
prop yourself up
your confidence seems to be flagging
a death sentence for straw dogs and hollowmen
such as we

blithely turning toward a closer ground she measured her body in the mirror's reflection for the inside capacity (adequate at any), of the ornate casket she had ordered to have intricately carved and lavishly inlaid.
she was in a fantastic space for a good-natured case of the ****-its. 
Dani was dying.
she was small in stature and large in awkward.
jotting the numbers down,
her eyes - just a bit of dust 
smiling through and reaching for 
the coin she tossed 
-her way out the door.
     god how she mystifies me.
in awe, slack-jawed and my face hurts from laughing with her.
it's like a hundred million tiny yellow butterflies were released at penelope's wedding to a sky of falling ashes from a small grass fire next county over. 
     that's what i feel like when she laughs. i am going to miss her when she goes-
i can't really wrap myself around a comprehensive strategy for creating a space within myself that will be without her. 
i have lost interest in trifling 
i spend my time at a job that's just a good reason to walk that far. 
     i come home with fresh fish and flowers and a couple of album finds from "the pig and the gator" record store.  
guy clarke, Willie's 
"redheaded stranger", and an early Romones e.p.
     Dani loved, i mean loves records. so do i. ****. loved. that sort of tears me up that i wrote that. 
     anyhow, we crack beers and eat fish and listen and talk and laugh and spend the rest of most nights trying to find my disappeared dog Luke Sidewalker. i miss him so incredibly deeply that my gut hurts so as to nearly stop me from breathing.
     i feel that i am so many people when i am with her.
     that's the mystic. she sort of leads me to where i am most comfortable in her presence. she showed me where.
that you could be in pieces and not get nervous about it. 
     i can't imagine tomorrow. and i can no longer remember yesterday,
but as the ******* ghost of this day;
i hold no real promise. 
this is it. 
     here she is; opening the door as she thumb flips her coin with something near to indifference. bloww.
she puts a smile on me like she's swinging a haymaker. 
"tails", she whispers. she is looking at me as if there is something worth looking at. 
she hands her coin to me.
tails. 
butterflies and ashes.