A rusty razor blade
embedded in the gap
between your two front teeth.
The sound of wet suction
when you pull the sticky caramel
apple out of your mouth but
the razor blade remains.
A caramel apple, a malevolent oyster
that relinquishes its
browned and jagged
pearl at the small and tempting price of a bite.

I'm old enough
to understand,
old man,
what it takes to drag your body out of bed
at one in the morning.
I understand the frustration,
father,
of a cold drive all alone.
I understand the *******,
dad,
of a good job unappreciated.
But I do not yet understand,
daddy,
the fierce sacrifice,
the silent suffering,
the self crucifixion, immolation, flagellation,
of a man who loves his family
more than he loves himself.

Rubber ***** fired,
like grapeshot from cannons,
through a hall of xylophones and
trampolines.
Lemming pianos,
evacuated en masse down
a spiral staircase, piling,
a heap of discordant corpses,
at the foot of the last stair.
The screaming of a star
smeared across space and pasted,
like paint, onto
the smirking invisible face
behind a singularity.

Inventing shooting stars
to keep you here and hopeful
while I finagle with my courage
and inch closer to your smile
on a bridge that runs over no river.

The shade and the light,
a yin yang movie theater,
concealing our back-row distractions
under the din and darkness of
a film we're both missing.

Afternoon sunlight chopped up
by the blinds and served
through them, like hors d'oeuvres,
onto our warm bodies
lying together above the covers.

Echoes of our shouting
in the quiet of an impasse that will grow
into a chasm that runs under no bridge
if I reach over and hold you.
Which I always do.

Closing your bedroom door,
aching to turn around and silence your sobbing
that follows me all the way
through your apartment
and out of your future.

Don't speak to me of dead things.
Memories,
nothing but
surround sound moving pictures of
dead noises,
dead cells,
decaying bodies and relationships.
Dead people.
Dead things.

Just once I'd like to ****
into your open mouth.
See how you like the taste
of ****.

A squall out on the high seas,
lightning illuminating the underbellies
of dark and heavy clouds.
The delayed thunder barely reaches my island.
It hasn't rained here in almost four months.
Out, under those clouds
instead of here, under this palm
I could wrap my body in that storm
and feel the lightning lash my back
and caress me in the dark
between the strobes of light.
I could drown beneath the beating waves,
and maybe find a mermaid.