When I was younger
I slept in the top bunk
over my older brother

- Pretty soon we’re all going to die -
he was fond of saying
while we listened to Credence
Clearwater Revival on an old turntable
with a penny he taped to the arm
to make it sound like a $100

Pretty soon he got me saying the same
words, like moon, mosquitos and darkness
were in his ear, he’d have dreams of
naked women washing his feet
and sparrows looking out of his eyes

He hollered at old man death
when he was wanting some shuteye

- Nobody on earth is like me -
he’d wake up shouting not meaning
to disturb my sleep

He said - I am the white piano
they threw off the bridge -
- the snake bed and the shade tree -
- I am something, yes-sir-eee -

- I’m something not everybody wants
to believe - he’d say sipping on whiskey
bought from a woman up the holler

He told death to - kiss his white *** -
then holler at me to get out of bed
and go trim the grass around the stone
angels planted up in the high pasture.

Odd color
of trifling light
Flitting petal
blue-purple-gray
emerged from asphalt's
heated slumber
to lead some airy way--

The road forgot

I want your crimson—
envelop,
cling,
embody—

Like fractals to rub my hands
       over.

Kindling aplenty
as the snows set in.

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast—
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child—so high—you are,
And all this is folly to the world.

i couldn't focus because of the rain running into the window.
oh how the world was literally gray.
i could see the trees and pavement getting wet from where i was sitting.
i wondered where you were right now?
was this rain your tears?
i wanted to hold you.
i missed the way you cupped my face in your hands,
how your eyes healed me.
the rain brought me out of my trance of you and brought back to my body, to this world
without you.

your white dress
trailed along the high highway
brushing leather and sage

i knew why you were driving
away:

the consecrated hordes and
suitcases in your closet closed
on their broken hinges:

i never felt so askew,
such a part of you.