they make goodbyes
sound easy
when they're at your door
late at night
and they scream your
name like a warning
from the bottom
of the staircase
you leave them,
until apologies make
your tongue as raw as
saw-dust
those nameless boys
the one's with
smoky breath,
they write your name
to the skies
constellate it to their
forefingers and cross it
over their forehead
like a baptism
those boys with hands
that eat like worms
at the dying heart
of your feelings
no, they don't love you
only death can
love you,
nameless girl
with the
countless faces.

i grew up in a patch
of green
low rolling hill
tumbling sky
red maple picnics
cool earth

roses at the chain link
spring's surprise
play dates out front
shoddy wooden hideaway
to the rear

woodpile-beware!
sister scarred
angry bees collect

red-shingled horizon
white shack
rear view
laundry-line perimieter
prison yard
beware
invisible fence line

irish drunks
right side
wife shouts
captures best friend
back-rear torment
pup trapped
evil about

boys and bruised knees
cheek kisses
and sunset
bike rides
snack spot
woods of death

the sky fed me
my roots
tightly woven
spanned, undisturbed

summer mornings
on the run
heat like fire
pebbles, glass
walking on

escape, run, be wild
dreams your navigator

loose teeth
mother's hugs
father's presence
marlboroughs
motor, artistically
deconstructed
colored red

powered escape hatch
off-license
long gone
tree trunk porch presence
dead bird picnic
red-slatted bridge

fruit spider visitor
tiny rodent winter traps
screaming zia
e mamma
adniamo
basta!

communion veil
st. albans bound
pappa, look!
gum stuck hair
and
ruined sleeve

tumbled jacks
fruit loop bed
times
mas*h
glass box
from the carpeted
haven
orange-smokey
scent

beat downs behind
the woodstove
hair-dragged reckonings
begging
cries

anger passed down
mother to
mother
to
brother
pray, midnight
smoke
sleepless-haunted
hell

i grew in no-man's land

I sit alone
I sit here still
I sit and think
Of my good will

I give and give
Sometimes I get
But often not
Most times forget