Wait a day and pray
your god forgets sins confessed
under influence.

If only your eyes would lock mine.
If only I could stop time, wind clocks
back and back until years passed like seconds,
became nothing more than leaves
drifting in an autumn wind.

What dreams we'd share.
What things we'd see and touch and live.
What fireworks would light the sky.

saw a video
other day
sheep bleating
foggy
scotch air
expelled at her
lips

it looked like
outside

imagine i'd kissed
you in public at
the gas
station the
grocery
store

imagine our
tongues made
kind in
church on
sacred ground

three days remained;
the decision made
to pull it

no one knew
exactly how to
break the news

the gravity pulling
down a room:
tons & tons

i wonder, softly,
might we change
all our minds

if we should,
don't let it
be too late

never too late

Imagine the world
as your palm north-
south'ing your face

from fleeing fore-
head to flicking
brow-ridge to
nose-bridge

and all of it you're
stuck with and with
everything it hides

you're stuck with

stick it to your chest
and let it pump
rage in your veins

see it die in whatever
vein tracks from clavicle
to un-sunned wrist
it's wind; it's fire

singing your hairline—
your eyebrows though
thin as they are

they're still strong, love

When I'm forgotten,
God will scatter my ashes
in the Land of None.

—apparent late spring.
I wish the heart responded
to all that's in bloom.

How many more seconds until this cigarette is all but broken ash?

How many more questions must I ask until the answers start to **** their way in?

How many people went to my funeral?

How many people didn't want to go and went anyway? Someone give these people a medal.

How many people have I killed on accident?

Was it quick? Torturous? Which is more horrible?

Did it happen too fast to enjoy (or recognize) the end, or slow to the point life was no longer a desirable option? If it ends in this…

Have you ever planned a ****** in your headspace? Where did it happen? What did you use? What were they wearing? How quick? Why? No, not why. No. I don't care why. All good people have reasons.

All bad people have options.

In another life
we'd have been pinky-sworn to
some ******* promise

We fixed the middle.
Now Gaza's desert is glass,
Israel byegone.

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.

—and in that moment
I was immovably still;
stone, impassable—

These Men are all in
boxes, taped air-holes and all
still, in time: breathing.

What songbird?
thought my bucks and belts
might make air cowboy
soft embrace landing

buck the rest &
bite the wrist right
scrape knuckle on cheek
cutie

I've heard cranes creak
less in your ears than
when I said it all
everywhere

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

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

Sticks at five a.m.,
   light limerick; beer-sopped mope,
you might just write one

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

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,

     &

     —

I fear again that
    I have nothing to share. I just
can't quite trap the words