The rusty
red earth
created
beneath your feet
is all you have to your name.

Angel laugh
(bells)
Broken lyre strings lining the floor like
carpet

Never look
down.

Don't hide
your scarred knees
from the world
don't cage your beating heart
with your ivory ribs

But rather
bare yourself
to the unforgiving universe

Try until your fingers bleed
and your hair grows silver with the wind
be thankful for every breath that fills your gasping lungs
and sing to the wind that you are alive
with the song still in you.
The ridges of your lips
tell stories of women
gained and lost
like pounds
or wooden pencils
from grade school

Behind a thicket of eyelashes
(downcast)
you weep
and laugh
with the same pair of bright eyes.

Pearl smile
(glint in the sunlight)
safe in the lines of your eyes.

Crane your pale neck
like a swan;
watch the cliff
burst open with sparrows and
rock doves.

Hands.
(tactile)
In your mind the song of color
shower water and
a tri-tone
thick as the sound of thighs upon thighs
helium-light
sorrow-heavy

Words.
The way you say anything
and nothing
clean-cut by the shears of your tongue
at the end of the rope.

Song.
Polyphony of your voice
and the sound of the storm
as you stand
arms outstretched
rain-soaked and cold
with bright glass eyes
and a warm heart
the storm crescendos
with the rise and fall of your hands
rain falling like cigarette smoke
on your upturned face
You taste on your tongue
yourself
passion and salt
slightly sweetened
by cologne
and the grainy bitterness
of skin

Soul.
This vase full of tears
like your breakable soul
(tastes like wildflowers and rain)
this lace-feathered honey hair
perfection contained in one white body
in one frosted-glass soul.

Are you breathing?
Do you live as I live now?
Are you thinking as I thought
so long ago?

Are you worried?
Do you wonder where you are
why you are
for whom you’re made?

Does it justify the games we play
the hearts we break
the love we take
to hear the sound of the unknown?

Little child, have you found a home
in a world I was never meant to know?

'Cause I'm aching for this hallowed day
when the sainted sinners see His face
but I cannot call for saving grace
with my only thought

your absent name