you pull me through doorways
with cherry red charm
you fill me with whiskey
and hang on my arm

The clerk asks for blood
the stone has run dry
we promise ’tomorrow’
and feed him with wine

dark clouds now move faster
with voice of hard wind
it speaks to you only
as thunder moves in

you twist here beside me
and curl like a vine
your teeth in my shoulder
reliving some crime

you hold me so tightly
and whisper your vows
your secrets stay hidden
your tears are so loud

here we know the teeth
here we show the marks
from lying underneath
what wants us in the dark
 
you shame and curse my name
in safety of the day
then pull your velvet drapes
and beg for me to stay
 
we claw and gnash in heat
and tear at tired skin
through bone
and blood
and meat
to taste the drug within
 
others cannot sleep
we bend against these walls
we grow
and swell
and creep
our scent hangs in the halls
 
you cry for noise and rain
to wash away your fear
you kiss your saint of pain
and drink her ivory tears
 
refuse all gods and kings
and move across my floor
you are my everything,
my queen, my child, my *****
 
press your hips to earth
reveal the peace within
begin the warm rebirth
of flesh
of life
of sin

I cannot leave with you, she wrote,
You cannot stay with me.
It’s just, I want to hold you still,
to feel what used to be.

One day, I’ll ask if we can talk,
not to fix or to explain,
just to hear the way your voice
still gently folds around my name.

Sometimes I’ll cry, it's no one's fault.
Sometimes I’ll ask you not to speak.
like hope tucked in a matchbook spine,
too bright to strike, too small to keep.

If there is blame, then speak it low.
If there is mercy, let it go.

She slipped this note inside my coat,
still holding warmth,
still not yet cold.

clutching my crumbling holy relic,
that trace of her final kiss
still threading heat through quivered lips,
rise to find shelter,
move it safe from noise and haze

stumbling through shadows,
like uneven, forgotten lumber
patching gut shot with used bandages
the faded, drunken hymns of heart flung sadness
hang along Cahuenga Avenue, old and overplayed
wilted spider silk across a concrete violin

each parking meter my next crutch,
arguing with stoic streetlights,
giving their cold flicker that same
blood stained sermon,
self same pity, worn and overused

I warned, I was wounded, the cut never sealed
Never bled, just trailed smoke.
it whistled in the wind some nights,
she knew, it was permission to leave
reading the eviction note
on a house that never had walls,

from edge of a coin- I’ll scratch out her name,
from a nightman’s club- the darkness can fall,
from the tear of my eye- she’ll melt away,
from the skin of my teeth- I’ll feel the dawn crack
and learn, again,
to crawl

Barn wood creaked
under a blistered roof.
Cicadas rasped like torn zippers,
gnats frenzied in heat-stung hush.

Pappaw’s tools stood like deacons,
rakes, blades, shovels,
a rust-bitten vise
clung to the bench like a wounded jaw,
bolted there decades before I was named.
Its grip slick from the sweat
of every hand that disappeared.
The dust smelled of grease
and something sweeter,
like old rain
hidden in burlap.

Out back,
the wheelbarrow slept
beside the seed spreader,
its mouth open as if to confess.
I built stories in those shadows,
called it a castle,
called it a ship,
called it the edge of the world
before I knew what endings meant.

I was a boy
who heard grief in hinges,
saw narrowed eyes
in the heads of railroad spikes,
spoke aloud to heroic hammers
like they might answer.
I named everything
before I knew
what not to love.

It wasn’t make-believe.
It was how the world arrived to me,
in stories,
in gestures,
in objects
aching to speak.

The *** leaned inward,
as if listening.
The seed spreader waited
like it still had something to offer.
The wheelbarrow, tilted,
cradling sleeping rain
and maybe me,
once.

in darkness
I left you
was when your heart was slow
instructed by the western strand
'gather clothes and go.'

I missed you
this morning
we moved from where we strayed
slipping free of drunken vows
fevered flesh had made

your soft
small picture
commands me now to kneel
deny the gods I knew before
and drop this broken shield

I'll ask you
tomorrow
'please cut this tender thread.
it bleeds and binds my all to you,
your body, and your bed

that simple
small mercy
returns my broken life
where your kiss can never hurt me
Orion fades from sight

I know how
you'll answer
'we are so lightly here,
It is in love that we are made,
in love we disappear'

too wise or
too simple
it's either black or white
unhealed, I'll tear at stitches
bleed out this fatal life

remember
years later
onto those soft lit eyes
your warm belly fluttered
in a melody
of sighs
then drowsy, low rain
fell so we would float
and drift through
wet desert
in a folded paper boat.