with rust-stained hands
and our knees dusted with soot and red carolina clay
we stood among the metal skeletons,
new relics of twisted form
halted in perpetual ascent to the crumbling walls
and bathed in orange from a winter sun hovering just above the horizon

we wander through a still and eerie scene,
a frozen moment in the slow quiet war of organic and geometric
as we inch our shoes along the top of the narrow walls,
falling ash catches light, recalling its formation
manifest from crackling destruction to land in charcoal hues that blanket the ground.

this little piece of suburban wasteland
a reminder of cleansing fire, thunder from the spheres.
momentarily our minds cease to race through events, seeking to justify the seemingly random
to explain neglect of the highest sort.

in this age
post-postmodern,
we feel alive and bravely secular-
standing in the long twilight, breathing the holy ghost,
corporeal.
memory will not yield, but neither shall we.

we have gazed into the abyss

and everything is beautiful.

the sky is on fire;

the rest is a series of grays.

wrought iron, rot of ages.

earth besot by metal, metal besot by rust.

an oxidized baptism.


clouds are made in factories now.
the silver lining is a carcinogen
toxic as the underside of peeling paint.

spring is devoid of sound.

persephone speaks in whispers
with a copper taste in her mouth
and lungs filled with blood and dust.
an old nosebleed has dried in rivulets down her face.

cross-legged and bony on a rusted y-beam
she counts down to doomsday
in dried flower petals.

a lone figure amidst a sea of flags of surrender
rendered in miniature
and shivering, flapping in the gale
she ties ribbons to the slender limbs of the condemned.

the falcon is long gone.
there is no-one home in the cobwebs.

at night, the smog blots out the stars.

she wraps her arms around her wasted frame
stands in opposition of progress
and waits for the sirens
and a new clear winter.

she remembers a time when there were still blank spaces on the maps.

but this is topside, and there is no undiscovered country.

winter is thorns to scratch the skin
reopening old wounds
and bringing night early.

the creek in the park is nearly silent
dappled with dead leaves it flows icy into the dark
and joins an underground river where some things that it carries don't emerge,
never see the sunlight again.

she is a soft silhouette at the edge of the water.
her breathing is shallow, her hands going numb,
already raw from repeated scrubbing.

they don't miss her in the house yet, but they will soon.
she watches the sun sink behind the cold bones of the trees.
she quietly kneels to no one in the coming dusk,
a sinner lacking a redeemer.

when spiders die, their legs curl inward
and they clutch themselves
because they have no one else to hold.

oh, i am an insidious thing; i pretend not to know the implications.
my dreams are troubled again.

grant me fixity;
my mind is reaching out in all directions,
many tendrils, like vines, live wires
crawling over the covers,
dropping to the ground,
over the floors and up the walls,
to the spaces under doors and out the cracks in the windowsill
to scatter uneasy through the damp grass and darkened trees.

lover, you ought to capture me like a lightning bug in a jar,
though their glow is much warmer than any that i can give off
besides, they always starve to death, don't they?

don't you understand? oh, but how could you?
does it even make sense to say i want to want to stay?

in the afternoon of my waking dream
slots of sunlight from in between the blinds wrap around you
and shimmer-shake warm and white to drive away the last vestiges of winter.
we lay like cats clasping from fingers to toes
and i expect our bones to grow and wind together like twisting vines
any time now.
thank god for the precision and choice conveyance of language
because without it, you might actually be able to tell what i mean.
what is there to say, other than
i am in love with your skeleton, some idea of you.  it makes me anxious.

it's the golden ratio at the golden hour.
i lay anesthetized on your bed-
i don't know if you'll find any particular use for my tangle of veins and arteries,
but i've left them out for you all the same.

evening brings the clouds and we're still entwined,
shifting about in languor, yet somehow restless.
rolling overhead comes the first of the almost-summer storms.
the air is heavy-hot, the clouds dark electric,
and our bedroom backdrop is lit by lightning.
the radio is still on in the other room
and we are serenaded by the anxious buzz of the severe weather advisory.

night falls and we lay in your bed and attempt to fall asleep
against a uneasy lullaby of road noise, alarms, lights from passing cars
in the dark i run my fingers over your bones.
your lips on my forehead are the baptism that i never had.
we dream of quiet places that no-one cares about except us.

tonight we are sequestered in restless inactivity,
but soon we will reclaim our rightful place
high above the rooftops
and deep beneath the streets.
with our pant legs rolled up and our cameras slung about our backs,
we will delight in adding to our list of transgressions against what is expected of us.
wind will whip at our hair and jackets
as we stand precariously in the highest places.
we will traverse the immense and forgotten,
and light up the cold concrete dark down below.

but for now, i will wrap myself around you and dream through the thunder.