—how many people
are still here, babe? **** smell of
saccharine, sweet, bloom—

Easy was, easy
were—right? Thought you might buck at
lovely approach, kid; —

I'd rather
talk at you
of filth than
speak to you
like a man

I — (03/18/2025)

I thought I might be able to
revisit this tonight. No,

     &

II — (03/23/2025)

There are brief moments where
the thought of you whistles by
and I'm reminded of the time
we spent spitting **** abreast
your apartment door, exhaling
lungfulls of this and that,

     &

III — (03/24/2025)

I hope you when your hand
met mine in awkward cordiality
and your pupils dilated at
my skin-stretched smile
found some sage and cedar
peels tucked in the cheek of
some future me,

     &

     —

Your tenor can't quite
     land pitch right. Feckless warbles.
The songbirds' been choked.—

My father is dying a snail slow death I think.
I don't quite know how to tell him to kindly stop dying.
Once I had the flu at 15 and he cleaned the sick off me
and said nothing of it after. That was kind of him.

There was something of a man in him. Hard to find,
turns out of men. Decency rattles and bites and burrows.
I wished at one point I would find on him that would
figure it out for me. Heretofore is sorry luck, love.

He bolted from me
    like cannonshot powder torched
  and full of fury