******* press upon my chest, above my heart, just enough to sting. Her hands were always bigger than mine, tougher, stronger. She pushed harder.

(this was how we showed our love, back when we loved)

She’s doing it now, again, staring. Staring, laying on the pressure, trying to pull a sound from my mouth, a gasp, a curse, a moan, anything.

Her short nails leave half moons in my skin, a pair of eyes winking up at me.

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, some of which include: chips of cloven hooves, beating in rhythm with a grand conqueror on high, brethren united in one charge; sweat of a migrant, summertime rain cooling between his shoulder blades, stones callusing fingers; blood of one and many terracotta men, giving their lives for God and king; new silk chewed up by moths; jade and chrysanthemum, a nobleman’s wife’s treasury; sun and wind, a flood, grace of a new emperor - my life, reaching backwards into pockets of rice fields, scholars’ tables, great-grandmother’s childhood castle, everything I know.

in midwinter noon’s light your fingers shudder out concerto number three
on the insides of your cheek
in the hollows of your thighs
prickling beneath your ribs
swollen heart
knees that cave so, just so

split second they called you beautiful
golden under the lights
but many hours more you oxidize
feet
rusting varnish green
rusty blood that stems, slowly, slowly

they say the music dances through the one she loves, a body and life anew
i once saw the night embrace you as a lover
did you love her back?
did you love me back?
or were we to have and to hold and to throw
across the room
reborn as something less

Suburban’s the only place open this late so we slide
into the red slicker seats, feet locked into orbit, knees chaste:
against the checkered table our hands grasp
empty space, separate by twos.
Graveyard workers chug past, silent ships on a still sea.
Grey-faced one asks to take our order
specials falling off her tongue
by rote, routine, and
on instinct I ask
for the two-for one cheeseburgers and a side of curly fries:
“extra crisp” you used to chime in;
smile in your eyes now
you say
none for me
thanks.

The vineyard growing out
of decrepit stationmaster’s hovel flays
the skin of buses and trains alike
faces long and
pe eli  n   g.

Atop a rubber sea I wade,
sunlight ebbing awash
on my strong shoulders;
in pinks
purples
blue and green and grey.

The soot of early midafternoon chokes
up, curling down
my spine,
hug from a friend
in the skeleton of a regulation
seat my mind lays
to rest, soporific
sweet.

Here lie the ruins of a plainsman’s kingdom,
ghost fox says.
Here lie the dust
y wings of Corvus corax, grey
in age. Here lie the
loves and the
dreams and the
hearts of my
ancestors
wholly unholy in their pagan worship,
but:
the vineyard is a graveyard is a home
wild to hold
tame at heart
and there lies my body,
(anything I want it to be)
grapes a-swinging just out of reach-

The fox gets his prize
how sweet it tastes on my tongue.

a minute on the stage you are resplendent as a thousand suns, refracting
ten thousand hours you are the shade of worn soles, warehouse practice rooms, old blood and baby powder,
unpretty.
and glorious

sawdust on your lips, in your hair, falling. the early morning tastes sweet, chill before dawn stinging your cheeks. you think you've done good.

‘do you like it?’ you ask, though you don't know how she'd tell you, locked up in this pretty box you've made for her. still, you poured your love into it. you want her to say yes.

the five o’clock sunrise leaves you hanging.

you hear their anger, like a bullfight and your ribcage is the ring
your heart is the rodeo clown,
his job is to take the hits
if you’re not fast enough
you’re not good enough

remind me of the good old days
when the grass was blue and tickled our
sallow faces, mashed into the ground with the
ferocity of dogs straining
against their masters’ wishes.

when i touched you and my hands came apart clean
as if they had run upstream along
your shoulder blades, peeling sweetly
as the sun renewed our forms
fresh, whole.

where the stars beamed down so bright
even the winterfairies came out
to dance with the night,
lovers tucked away in her
curve, reveling in orgiastic sincerity.

our organic bodies, lined with
organic dust, recollect in the shade
of rose-colored wisteria, blooming free
high and sweet, breathing in
breathing out.

and everything that she is touches something raw and scared within you
this mirror image haunting flames
licking from within
you wonder if in your youth you looked like that though you are the same age as her
you wonder if you look like that right now

you don't feel right if you're not in pain and that might be what hurts you the most

so the summer nights slip
through your fingers once again
grains of sand in an hourglass
a beach
fireflies shine bright take flight leave your eyes
wide
and dull

In the weeks leading up to your death there was no fire in your lips and no water in your eyes and you seemed happy for a turn so I let it be; when you licked into my mouth and it felt like feather candy, like I’d ticked off all the right choices, no red lines and I thought that we were safe. As you curved under the inside of my birdlike wrists and fed me praise, kisses where you projected cuts I had no heart for sight and but knots to stomach, that you loved me a little bit. I loved you less than a bit, then, but maybe it was always like that. I wake up to your shoes strung on a wire and that is fine but; i see you strung on a wire and things are not fine.

time is a forever we hold for a second
blinking past us, gone

Searing heat caresses me, melts me to the bone. It's better, so much better, flames so hot they consume all. I wonder deliriously why I've never done this before, never lit my fingers like candles to break the dark, never set a room ablaze to fight the frost, but I already know. No one ever told me how.

He carries me out amidst falling embers, and the loss is sharp, immediate. The fire evaporates from my veins, leaving me empty, burnt to ashes.

Are you okay? he asks, muffled through his suit.

It's cold, I say.

you **** it up again.

caller id before she can hide from you
mother’s not done fighting but you don’t know that
she asks about your day and the weather and how is the brulee because she might get that next time
you think there are better things to talk about than overcooked pudding

you’re too much, too mean, chafing around the edges
sharp eyes and sharp tongue, a bed of knives inside
cutting out old scars
******* in the wounds
the words fall out of you, acid reflux slick and sweet in your mouth but you can’t stop-

she packs up her things six minutes later and it hurts more than a slap to the face might have if she were so inclined
and you wonder why you can’t love someone the way you were made to