To say you had claws
is an understatement

your cat talons
like little saws

could have cut away
a forest

and

the snaking scar
you made so long ago

still  runs down
my arm

and gives me devilish
inspiration

which is why
it's called

Old Scratch

We TALK
and we WALK

through a GARDEN


not of stone
daffodils

or red roses
but of

GLASS glass
of all  MANIPULATIONS

and because of this
FLOWERS  trees and other

natural things
no longer satisfy

what I want is now
much

HIGHER
PLEASE believe me when I say

it is much
HIGHER

outside is gray
and silent

with just a hint
of breeze

mixed with a faint
rumble

and my nose
is

ITCHY

In the moment
after the sparks

pops
and flashes

where tendrils of smoke
drift

off into the ink
that is squarely night

and she assembles
a new Hoover  hand vacuum

that's not my grandmother's
or even my mother's

hand vacuum

it's futuristic body
resembles

a robot from a Fifties
sci-fi thriller and

while the hour is late
and as shadows dance on the water

I think

what a difference
a year makes

or a decade
and most of all

a century

Red
Black
move
jump
KING

nothing to it

you are making this way too hard

but it is hard
for a square peg

in an ocean  
of round holes

~
Saturn Jupiter Mars,
three blind mice running
up the clock to find freedom.

starlight stairs in abyss,
cities of the interior ring
carry a dangerous cargo: citizens.

t-minus one/this is fear

I am no astronaut,
I'm a refugee, bleeding hands pressed
tight to the barbed-wired fence.

we play charades from the window,
lunar phases keening
in the tender light of these infant wars.

t-minus one/this is fear

farewell threshold on laudanum,
the grifted gift of the Joe Blakes
painted from memory.

the far off observation
telescoping my fear, leading me
to believe I'm hiding in plain view.
~