Thighs pounding and muscles sore
the osprey floats above
bouncing among us, hawking us down.
I glance to the side of your face,
nostrils large and inhaling,
eyes at a squint,
bright blue nike shorts
well above mid thigh
and the necklace I bought you shimmering and buried
within a dark *****.
If only I knew this would be our last go at it
our last jog with the team.
Maybe I would have opened my mouth, rubbed your lower back
and whispered my pounding heart.

The grasses are tall and about to die,
the air now begins to chill.
Your moms old college sweater fits so loose
your eyes match the color.
The last time I saw you was with that sweater,
and that terrible
blue bird in the middle,
not a bad end
to something I loved
at least you felt some comfort.

Sea of sound with mechanical fish,
neon frowns,
why don’t
you know
float down,
to the floor of this bedpost,

How did we get here?

Broken glasses, spectacled rainbows,
attached to a black coffee stained halo,
and mixed up greens,
and the coral looked so real to you,
and didn’t it call to us?
From the bed
of this rock
the back of the
stock room,
the upstairs dust
of the bookshelves,
ladders extending to the roof's stars.
Howler monkeys do their best.
Elephants stomp when they walk.
We stomped when we, looked up,
brazen blues and blackened too,
evaporating our beings into a trippy
dead end dreamed up dream.
Stabbing with the tip of insecurity,
hacking with sunken sailboat eyes.
And then the sky took us up with them.

Sharp staccato steps as I made my way downstairs,
Into the white convertible I always hated.
Sailing down the streets of what is, and remembering what kind of was.
Homeliness and homelessness and
brokenness and that messy glue you use in Elementary School.
And all the parts
connected like a quilt
and the holes in it make it ours
and the cold air keeps my toes warm,
as the limbs shiver,
and the bumps rise,
I remember how you were,
and how my heart feels,
and how my hands shook,
and how now they are steady, and stiff,
and how lifelessness comes with life,
hidden under a black cloak,
but you know he’s there,
and so do I.
And that keeps us driving,
wordless as we drive off the cliff,
silent as the waterfalls take us down with them,
quite as the car bomb we built goes off,
and yet we emerge from the ash,
and breathe under the ocean roar,
as we climb back
into another convertible car
and do it again.