darling,
stroke me in this instance
strike me in my temple,
there is patience here;
the ground on which we stand
for now,
knows no fury
the sky is washed with lemonade
and you can see, on the outskirts
a dark, foaming omen.
but never mind him.
we are in an aperture,
angel sweat cascades
like sparks off an anvil
stain the soul with an evergreen petrichor.
we are human. and we are not.

lemonade, aperture, petrichor—
the sky will enrich my hand
with yours.

windows rattled
on edge,
huddling against our cinder blanket,
it was on the frame that we etched out,
prematurely, our obituaries
tilting in a tempest;
the world shattered away
with some painter going off to mourn
his shards
slicing the cliff of your cheek,
weathering,
eroding,
dripping like the earth’s wine

the ocean fell in sheets of cold,
unrelenting ice
like a blanket with holes snipped up
in an indigo night,
like a robin maniacally flapping,
flying too far from home.

beside him
i stood amongst the dragon’s onslaught
amidst his water, ice, hail
in unending, windy ballad

and he screamed
deathly, beastly wailing
against the thunderclap, stabbing
into the gust
with a conviction veiled behind rainy eyes.

papa always forbade
any drops of gold which escaped my skin
and yet, here i am, un-alone and undone,
in between your neon eyes
and a black ocean, spilling out from your skull,

you intertwine your skin with mine,
as the paint-splatter words around us
trap themselves in my periphery,

forgive me, papa
throw caution to the wind,
and chase her down to your cliffside cottage,

you, prowling lion,
auburn and amber mixing
together in the painter’s jar,
refuse to heel before the hunter,

intercede on my behalf, o Beloved
pray that the image is forever scalded onto my skin,
that of the halo hung abode your heel
without end, singing into my fickle ears.

sirens wail a razor tune
like the metal wind
scraping the side of my ear
i pull my jaw agape
in a lake of starry glass
we run our fingers
through a godly, wispy beard