the break of day is usually the femur.
but the moon mends
where a shadow falls to it's knees
and begs forgiveness

you are not attached
to a dead weight.

you are heavy.

II


if it bleeds
then it must love.
and the hours swarming the continuum
have no time for the minutes
of your day, you are too full of loss.
uncoupled from  the shelter
of nonexistence.
you grieve in
real time.

you are too beautiful to mean nothing

but can't recall.

He stuck two sticks in the mud
Forked like a moccasins's tongue
To hold both poles while we smoked
Camels we stole from the coal
Truck man and drank homemade
Wine swapped for a knife and a dollar
To the drunk up the holler and a can
Of sweet corn ten years old still dusty
And rusted but the trout hit it hard
Anyway like slow flies on a slow
Golden Saturday a long time ago.

The last time we kissed
I broke out in hives
from the honey on her breath
and the sting of her lies.
I swear, I'd die a thousand deaths
if she were the queen of my hive.

In the vault of my innermost,
Shelves shelf letters.
Some rhyme.

I'll never send you an email.
I'd rather cry into a rust red leaf
Held before your face to

Not kiss.
Winter is coming; Death approaching,
Carrying Life in

Her arms like a
Newborn
Cliché.

So we didn't ****
Ourselves this time
Either.

Drunk in the morning watching
The tail feathers of a magpie not
Being twigs within the yellow
Womb of swaying autumn
Bushes.

A thousand hands on my skin.
Hours of lips against my
Chest.

Openness, the smell of woman
On every single breath of
Air.

Contained. Possessed.
Consumed. Engulfed. Confined.
Content.

I float in love craving me.
My every cell in bliss.
Water;

I am a leaf in a stream.
Floating in the featherness of
Relentless attention;

Too exhausted to sleep, yet
Giving in to dreaming
On.

A laughing prisoner.
More bars, locks, chains!
Caged in, and so, so free.

November shakes the wet from
Her wings and stretches them to
Their full reach; tips touching
The death and birth of October
And December,
Feathers the colour of leafless
Trees and ploughed fields.

A thirty day lifespan of deathbed
Lullabies and hardened faces,
Bodies crouching to lay themselves
Upon their own warmth in
Desperation, clouds of breath
Escaping layers of
Cotton and wool.

Winter is as inevetable as dying.
I wander between birches and
Pinetrees like crooked teeth
Protruding from the mist; the
Bones of something decomposed
Between moss and
***** forest water.

Black as old blood.
Brown as mud, air like millions
Of tiny arrows against any bare
Skin.
This landscape could be someone's
Nightmare, some horror movie
Set or a Ted Hughes poem backdrop.

But I stand, still and alone, one
Palm against a rotten tree trunk,
The other upon my Norwegian
Heart. It is a time for looking within
For strength. To be silent and not think,
But feel; a time for building fires.
To gather what's dry, and prepare.