There where times when we
laughed: your mouth parted
small oceans across its landscape,
etching caves into your molars,
if I'd seen them through that rocky grin.

I'd long to hear the crashing of your waves
again. Against a rocky bay.
To taste the dried-up seaweed of near morning
and low tide.
To be matted hair against
a rough wind, shallow
under fading storms.

I'll send smoke
signals and await contact-departing
lost words from frothy beaches

and still I'll cling to remember
the sinking tide,
the swelling dawn
and the indented shoreline,

like a scar across
charred lips or the smile
of a stranger.

Biting into the crust of an evening reminiscent of you.*

Your crown was  
immaculate, your kingdom over-
grown with red ferns and dandelions up
the side of the fence in the back
yard where I'll meet you behind
the shed, under
the shadow of daybreak

with red ferns and
dandelions. A cloak sewn
from innocence, pushing against the weeds
breaking up--through
the side of the fence in the back yard
Where I meet you.

Your voice slurred in deep tongues,
licking up the side of the fence in the back yard.
Where I met you.

Smothered in red ferns
and dandelions.
We watched them grow
up and over the side of the fence in the back yard
Where I'd met you.  
From time

to time.

I'd watch
as the sunset colored you red,
painted me yellow
until we both
blurred into the night.
Before we even had a chance to crumble into
the crisp embrace of an evening.

Words were for whispering small
truths or swollen somethings
with the power of rocks, resting
on sifted oceans--back and forth
in the rocking chair.

Mama's song rings
cracking. Almost
the surface. Barely
a scratch. Lightly
on the record. Hitting repeat.
Falling

just short
of an earthy gesture. A smokey
word and a hallowed cave. Lethargy
drifting in waves.

I watched you always
through layers of sea
salted satin and holy oil.

The face of a churning
stomach, the incense of your fingers
and the hailed
embrace of the cathedral. Kneeling on
the floor of the ocean or a prayer bench.

You lead me, always,
through the tunneled,
or the flicker of rounded
sounds and  whispered pews.

Through clouded words  
and anointed promises.
It's cold enough to taste you
in this storm of twenty something verses, hailed
and poured from mouth to mouth.

A shaking hand
and the crumbling of bread:
something outstretched and sinful.
Perversions of a theme.  

You were my
mask and I wore you
out, with time and mercury
poisoning.

In the drenching warmth I see you now:
A song and a purpose.
A verse and a lie.

All I want is a plump upper
lip and the stain
of coffee on your breath.

I can taste that paradise and exhale
in rhythm. To the drums somewhere. They could be
pounding. In those bloated silences
when I can taste our heartbeat, offset
by smooth jazz and the bubbling snare. Overflown,
suffocating champagne smiles.

Your teeth are crooked,
but I don't mind.
They all fall
someday.

        What's the matter?
With a toothy grin
reflected off molten
puddles in the sun
of a clouded morning,
flashed
through the dreamscape
of a lover's quarrel and echoed off
the lips of a lie.  

I could be sipping
tea and watching the clouds
fall into the haven of your words.
But I might pour
myself a glass
of wine.

My pen was a Palace
and it reigned
over princess and peasant
alike.

The court jester fell
at its feet. The Palace
caco-
phonied with laughter.

The K-
night brought delicious
terrors, to which the princess
fell.

The scribe recorded it all. Exactly
as it happened.

There is poetry in blood- in the veins
that licked up my spine and down
a silhouetted profile in last night's lusting whisper
and this mourning's coffee.

There is something in the way
she holds the knife-cutting
onions for tacos and
laughing for the guests, pulling

down her sleeves, adjusting
her hair in the
reflection of the sink. She looks
just fine
this way, using
these silver deposits to search
for something- perhaps
lost down the disposal
or obscured by drops
of blood from where she nicked
herself.

And she watches the blood seep and
her lines blur with
these words and
the page- or is it
her face?

It blushes.