oh,
how the seashell
screamed so faintly in my swollen, pinkened ear
labored from listening

mama's face open,
all lit up
and how she whispered "it's the water,
she's calling you
home"

and I
turned on my heel
fell into myself
my little face, stone-cold

and the sea
oh,
she got me
quite figured out

the lurch in my stomach
was her, and her
millions of
droplets
of doubt

we stopped the car at the ocean
and you all jumped right in
and I
hung back-
frightened
of the black, crashing abyss

mouth gaping and open
beneath this once-trundled bridge
the southern crust met the northern
lips

connected by water in which
trouts dance and
ladders rot

we search for our reflections in the
dead of night
seeking a something
we cannot find on either side

wondering
who will swallow us whole,
the water or

ourselves

the pursing of brown lips
Earth as she inhales
feet which prance quietly across
the folding of pink hands

corners of a dark room, melt
by candle
billowing shadows
cast and crowded into Darkness,
who is holding hands with
Light

embrace of opposites
stark and subtle dance together
a fluid

one being, like a river

undeniably roaring

Such is the transience of anger and
flightiness of love

who call upon us
even in the scarcest of moments

starch and static,
it hangs above and
residual softness strangles me

Your tepid breathing, arms an
x
lain across my path (your chest)

Are those wayward willows eyeing me?
How many t's and trees will speak to these stormy,
stable days?
in my haze I felt warm and held
it irks me now

your home is closing in on me. I've got to sleep in the driveway. I know
your timers, I see your calendars
seething
like your squared and timely, equal breathing

There is no comfort, in death that is daunting
She waits on those who measure
plans etched into palm,

toil jumps to erase them and
the peacocks and pitchforks all hung in your kitchen
sit and embrace her,
continue to hum
in the straight-backed chairs
and new steep light
seeps back
over our prospective life

the sunset
and it’s fury beating-
stretching across your face
restricting, conforming
thin plastic over space

this city dies every night
born again each morning to fresh laundry
and hot trash
steaming in the beaten streets

this city is beating
thousands of hearts clapping
at our own demise
muffled, behind closed doors
hidden, like the heart of our one, true
glorified,
dead God

in church halls and train station platforms
he sings at sunset and again each dawn
at every note his hand
reaching out to you
across impossible time

the wheels of shopping carts all screeching his name
his message, his orchestra

but our struggle, our bleeding
just for this love-
stifled and fleeting,
but
still beating in our stolen,
swollen hearts