No allusions to talking sticks,
or metaphors of a chrome plated god,
because it's only life.

I can make use of a woman
with supple ankles stepping off the bus
kindling my hips and heart,

(but you've heard that one before,)
and, it's only life, so this might
just read like an instruction manual,

or both halves of a confessional,
but there will be no use made
of dancing dogs or moonlight

in battle, because it's only life,
and I have never really known
what it is I want to say to you.

It’s something like, "I love you,"
but asides from just being
very frightening to say,

I also think, it's more.
If it's only life, it's also
only death,

and what can be said that penetrates
death. What can be said
that won't collapse like engine failure

in the span between you and I,
if I try to say an "I love you"
that's truer than death.

i had a dream i was rising through the trees

i had a dream i was falling through the ground
on docks calling a name i've never known
sitting in empty studies with the lord
calling mine
bad news used to sound like footsteps
down the hallway, used to be my mother's
hand turning the doorknob
and now it is a rotating hubcap
or a night without stars
full yellow moons out over the
complexes in the west
it sounds like empty milk
cartons and the tone of my own voice
it is people demanding that i be open
the most tragic of flaws--

i am meeting people just like me
telling them I want something more
can the wounded want
more?