You woke like windows,
shattered in Jewish hellfire,
shade by burning books.

I'm with you in the bluegrass, swaying like the ocean's floor
singing like we used to dream of all the things we'd one day see;
     I'm with you under florescent bulbs, of late night cubicles
laughing in tune with the hum of his fax machine at our inside jokes;
     I'm with you at every gas station, a blanket-full truck bed
crunching every loss under my boot heal, taking us back to perfection;
     I'm with you tying shoelaces
     and each sigh of the new moon,
     of every heart or new blood wound;
You--you're with every piece of me, familiar like childhood scars,
tear salt soaked and burning like ritual fires in each corner of world,
in wanting of my body to be sewn, to rise back and reclaim ours, anew.

summer night sweats
and whispers in the hay lofts
forgot our purpose

to her with tea bag eyes
and wrists like scarlet fever,
gently undue your bruising ties
and unthaw your years of winter

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
she breathed the where
and exhaled the won't be,
if only you'd been with her there,
to slow the feverish sea
--
up, to the nearest fall
down, in the mountain mist
she falls from nothing at all
just as she had wished
--
the moments leading to a place
took shape and color like music,
and with all the grace it takes
to purposefully lose it
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --

to her with shaking hands
and a mind like a burning temple,
remember your wish is your command,
and to always hold yourself gentle

The way you can't look at me,
'cos I'm not the little girl I used to be;
your tired recollection
of each gene in recession;
your knife heart, sad heart,
raised by a bad heart--

but I decided it’s worth battling your
droopy-eyed disapproval;
but I want to run into this fog
with my arms open wide;
but I always thought I’d rather burn in the fire
than die in my sleep.