The white, fluff tears of the skies
Halts the youth and fires
Even the silence cries
Seeking warmth and lies

Like a house that's alone
On that long wintry road
Blankets for hearts that have grown cold
A rest to a journey that is long

"It's quite a pretty hell,
quite a pretty hell,"

said the wilting woman
to her plastic window self,

a half-tint fetch, etched
in the eye of the weevil

threading the black dough
of the crosstown bus route.

The nightclubbers behind her
exchange glances and hold hands

as she begins to hum to herself,
but the unvarnished melody

lodges in an angle of odd brain
& soon I'm humming it too

as I step into 18th Street's maw,
already bristling neon sweet

with milkmaid dress hems
threshing ruptured doorsteps -

turning up my street I catch
a last sight of the shushed bus husk

crawling away northwards
with only a scratching hum inside

for its heartbeat, and a face lost
in the catacomb of its reflection.

I'm just a sparrow
longing for sky
and if I had wings
I could fly.

The heart that loves truly
         has a foretaste of eternity
         beyond the pale of the earthly
         it dwells in untold bliss and beauty

In the woods, I saw him once
Through the trees, the branches crunched

My basket warm, with gifts to spare

He took it all, left standing there.

There was no ax,
No take backs,

There was no peace,
No songs to keep

Oh, his ears,
Oh, his teeth

Stalking me, to my granny

Till he went in too deep,
Lost his feet.

The only other way, gone
is down.

taste as above the mind
interlong, stretch of water sold
absinthe's disdain for salt
familiar running legs brushing cruel