Katherine writes songs about wheat fields and her father’s blisters
From the four-by-six closet beneath the staircase.
Aaron doesn’t write anymore.

Katherine draws music notes to record
The tune of footsteps and creaking oak,
While Aaron feels the rough grain of maple window frames
And avoids his reflection in the double-paned glass.

Katherine holds tight to her pen
Like a man who’s lived a good life holds on to his final breath.
Aaron, he never found it that hard to exhale.

Katherine knows love like she knows the Sun,
While Aaron, who once flew wax-winged,
Stopped studying mythology
And found trust in extinguished light bulbs.

Katherine draws stick figures in the collected dust
Of cracked-cloth book covers
And embraces every particle that kisses her fingerprint.
Aaron wears black leather gloves
Like a desensitizing second-skin.
But they both close their eyes
When the wind brushes their cheeks.

When Katherine cries it’s wet and sloppy
And when it’s over she usually giggles
At the feeling of being human.
Aaron’s eyes are desert moons;
If he believed in a god he’d pray for rainstorms,
But instead he picks tumble weeds from his teeth
With the ribcage he found when the vultures were through.

Katherine webs outlines with plot twists and foreshadows
While Aaron knows some stories
Are made up as they’re written.

Katherine collects crushed asphalt from both sides of divided highways
And mixes it with ****** wax to varnish her innocence.
Aaron drives the back-roads and keeps one eye on the rearview mirror.
He finds solace in sharp turns.

Tonight, Katherine curls her toes as she writes a song about
loving up until your very last breath
And caresses her lips.
Aaron chews on his and slides open the window.
They both recall the taste of someone else’s skin from the salt in the air.
Katherine’s candle flickers and pops when she moves
Her hand through the light to cast stories on the wall.
Aaron crawls down the shadowed side of hallways
And feels the grey grow in his hair as he starts up the staircase.

Step by step by step by
each breath is
step by step
loved a little bit less
An all but silent cacophony of creaking oak.

Katherine etches a treble clef but her pupils dilate
When she senses the unfamiliar feeling of a second heartbeat.
With stitched silk stockings
she tip-toes up the same song.
Aaron hears music for the first time in so long
And turns to see where goose bumps come from.

Katherine crescendos at the top of the stairs and
Stares into two full, bright desert moons.
Aaron finds it hard to let go of the breath it takes to say,
“Don’t be afraid.”
Katherine tumbles like fingers down piano keys,
But for a split-second in the moment their eyes met
They both forgot the weight of loneliness.

Dance for your Mother
Dance for your Father
Dance for the universe
Dance for the son
The universe is singing as we dance along
Our Mother is dancing, she dances in the sun
So dance when you wanna, dance when you feel
Cause the love in your heart is the only thing thats real
Everything in the universe has its own song
If we learn to listen we can sing along
The forest, the ocean, the moon, the stars,
Everything sings for the glory of god
God is the bass, God is the beat
So when you hear God's rythm tap your feet
Whirl around and tap your feet
Listen to that crazy god beat
God breathed the song into our hearts
And breathed the universe into existence
His words are in every atom, every particle that ever existed
And written in his song is his great love for all of his creation
Its written in the Mother, Its written in the Son, Its written in the Father inside everyone
The three major notes and we are the drums
We are the crazy chaos that pulls it all together
We are the x factor that ties it in place
Even as mad as things might seem
We have to keep dancing to the beat of the drum
We have to keep dancing until we are one
Our feet feel the rythm
Our souls feel the beat
Lets dance tonight, lets dance in the street
The universe is calling, it calls to everyone
It sings to our Mother who dances in the sun
If you want to dance let God show you how
Its not so hard once you get the beat
Let God take the lead
He'll take you by the hand and he will lead you to the promised land
He will take you home in his loving arms
He'll take you away where there is no harm
Dance away your tears
Dance away your sorrows
Dance away for a better tomorrow
We need the dancers to bring in the light
We need the dancers in the final night
So embrace your inner dancer and let it all out
Embrace that inner spirit let it out like a spout
Now that you've got it that is the end
Remember to always keep dancing till the end
No matter what people might say
Dance until the very last day
Ahmad ***

The field at the back of the house:
last years’ lambs graze
on freshly topped thistles;
an old enamel bath
has replaced mother’s ***;
the tiny hamlet of trees gives shade,
as the blowfly lays eggs in their wool
and the butterflies on the cabbage.

A Galway and Suffock ram.
Both employed on our farm
to ****.

When the midwife is due
Larry and Barry are left to themselves
and 2 in to Alpha doesn’t go.

Over the years, I noticed,
every business blow
reduced blood
from torrent to trickle.

When Larry developed meningitis
he was taken into care,
Barry had a look
that struck me dumb.

I can never be able to tell Barry
I was there
when life left his body.

A mountain crumbling into nothing.

Every single moment she's telling me something.


With a shift of her weight that makes the leather under her sigh,


With a tilt of her head that better allows me to see the variations of green in her eyes,


With a shake of her glass that sends ice tumbling into what remains of a caramel colored drink,


With an adjustment of her skirt to hide (or draw attention to) her endless legs,


With the cool confident way she talks which isn't much like talking but more like dancing with words,


With the slow definite way she takes a drag from the Marlboro draped effortlessly in her hand as she sits under a sign reading "no fume",


With the way she responds to my "smoking kills" comment by saying she finds comfort in death,


With the amused, not annoyed, smirk I get when she catches my eyes travel from her face toward her pristine cleavage.


Every single moment she's telling me something. But what?