the **** takes a walk
with a pretty girl it wants to fall in love with.
the feet lead the way exploding acorns.
the shoulders seem expansive in this sensible polo shirt.
the forearm veins are doing impressive work.  
the mouth tells an endearing story and
the tongue slips in a joke.
the voice floats through the teeth like clouds.
the mind tells the arm to hold her hand
and the fingers interlock with ease.
her eyes tell the lips to kiss as she closes them.

but it's all distraction
look again:
the heart has never been darker or more withered.
the heart sits small and alone in the cold pulmonary cave
it punches the clock at the blood-pumping factory
with dispassionate obligation -- even spite.
inflammation runs rampant beneath the nonplussed exterior.
the shower water stings.
the breath is short and the ribs are cowardly.
the arms are bound with rope and the mouth is gagged.
the armpits are dripping on the sheets at night.
the tension knots the spinal erectors.
the fingers don't write. the fingers won't write.
the voice cracks and falls off the tongue like stone.
the eyes still lock on the memory of her skin in the moonlight
the eyes still lock on her portrait on the wall from last year.
the eyes still leak out occasionally.

we lived the lifestyle for a little while.
we're holding each other in a restaurant
i'm behind her in the bedroom holding her mouth shut
with the heart full enough to pop and redder than a beet.
i haven't seen her in months but
her hair's still stuck in my teeth.
i search her name online
from time to time.
the mind is sheepish and adolescent
and out of control.
the eternal weakness.

she pulls my blurry face from the mirror
and begs me to look out

begging me away from my folded brow
and my big nose
begging me to turn my back on the
turbulent mythology behind me
and look toward
the miracle lightning happening
all the time
all around us

she begs me to see it the way she does
myself and the world

all the smiles on the bright-eyed faces
all the slow moving water
glimmering in the starlight
all the kaleidoscope trees
with their infinity fingers
scratching at the sky

and so we are emerging
correction:
she is already dancing in the twilight
and i have begun to crawl toward the glow
i am a small broken-open seed
and she is the daylight on the face
of the sloping hill above me

she wants to introduce me to
all her friends beside smoldering coals
and all the painted clouds
on the yawning horizon and
all the neighborhood cats
that she nicknamed

at night in her bed
my feet hang off the end
hovering over the abyss
or the discarded clothing on the floor
rest them on the wood
she says begging from
her knees in front of me
bury them here in the ground
she begs me to grow roots
and stick around

at night in her bed
when i'm drunk on
the smell in her neck
and we're churning up
a confluence together
sometimes i wonder
if she's more in control than i am
with her hands on my chest
and her whispered words on my breath
i'm raptured
dumbstruck by the grip
lobotomized by her tongue

but you should've seen her when
i bought her flowers
the huge embrace
the long wet kiss
she doted on them for weeks
admiring them like the turning of planets
in a telescope
and i was admiring her then too

you should've seen her hair
that first time
the shapes it made in the sunbeam
like a hurricane candle
flickering against the wall
the way it tangled in my fingers
like her whole body was absorbing me

you should've seen her beg

twenty toes deep in daytona sand
i asked her if she'd stay
all night with me
and let me be her man
she shaded her eyes against
the southeastern sun with her hand
grinned and said never

but i know the dunes
shift with the wind
the pendulum swings to
and kronk pulled the lever

so i drove real slow
down the dusty sunset coast
and she straddled my arm
along those winding limestone roads
and bounced all the way
back to her daddy's farm

i've never been this wet
is what she whispered
with her tongue on my chest
and i really liked her style
she meant the rain coming
thru the open window
if i had to guess
and so we stayed like that awhile

now i'm still hiding out from the curse
and i don't even miss her much
just a few hundred tons worth
but some stones are better
left unturned

the sun paints squiggles on the table
over rooftops stands heat
but down here i freeze
the city is laid bare in the midday light
and it's the same town as before
where i saw no one but myself
in dusty hotel mirrors
yellowed wallpaper
back then everyone saw what i didn't want to see

i haven't been free for too long
i said
i don't want scenes
i don't want tears
i want to enjoy the short life at long last
there's nothing but the two of us
here in the shade
here, where time stands still
a leaf paints a shadow on your face
and there are no answers
because there are no questions

in my mind there is a garden
and a combustion engine in my chest
there's soil beneath my fingernails and
wolves out by the timberline
i'm spinning out into the blackness
i'm dizzy from the searchlights peering in
i'm scared i've wasted the best years of my life
i'm just trying to be honest

in the garden there is a fruit tree
yielding sorrows and sweet things
it's where i go when i am lonely
and i wonder if it can save me

i ask it for the secrets
the hidden treasure of the garden
let me peek behind the curtain
i've been waiting for the harvest
and i want to know for certain
if i was put here for a purpose
is the mess that i am making
really a blessing

i can talk at the stars
from my body on
these sticky southern nights
in the garden in my mind
their light falls down
and breaks open on the leaves
all genteel and kind
and on my calloused palms
and on the bullet in my teeth

and when the wind brings the rain
down from the righteous sky
it soaks the secret compartments
and what's hiding on the inside
the burning pain between my shoulder blades
and the things i tell myself are important
my ***** shirt clings to the engine
and i laugh out loud
from atop this pile of rubble
in the garden in my mind

i'm still searching for to find
what they say cannot be found
but in the pictures it seemed so simple
like a wheel that turns around
it doesn't have an address
and i know you don't believe it
but it's just like joy and sadness
now i'm old enough to see it

the rain stops and the sun
kisses me splendid
bathing like a little white bird
i'm having a golden moment
down in the mole-claw dirt
and what if it never ended
just a quiet kind of singing
at the edges of my dreaming
always repeating the song it sang back then:
there is never anything to fear here

been digging for my heart
it always seems out of reach
but i’m reading the chart
i’m talking to trees

not too sure of the politics
can’t keep up with the fuss
got this coat from the lost
& found, i get looks on the bus

we all glide thru the city night
we’re all taking this trip
we’re all using the same hard drugs
but we’re trying to quit

gonna grow my hair long again
find a wavelength i trust
buy a new quilted cardigan
find someone’s mother
to ****