Whispered were the stars
On the freckles ‘cross her face,
The chase, an orbit,
And sun,
Our son,
Not far behind.

Whispered were the stars,
Waning were the midnights,
Hours once assumed,
And cold,
The cold finger;
Mortality, ever to remind.

Whispered ‘ever, the stars,
Midnight’s come and go,
And sun,
Our son
Would love as we’d before,
Eternal, and long after we’ve gone.

Whispered was this order,
The path our parents once knew,
The songs they once sang;
Daughters, sons, our
Suns
Atop prior strings and

Whispered ideals that never diminish.
So let them dream, let them sing
Let them sing,
And let them
Shine,
Like before and never before.

Tapping scabs smolder my face; predictable
And prophecy, like owning a, “dead man’s hand,”
Parallel the pistol at your back.
It all began when the pen’s been dropped,
Somewhere untouchable; beyond claw,
Sooner the excuse as I’d long forgotten, “run.”
When drink’s not enough and, “escape’s,” the
Only to embrace oblivion, so it is and
So wrought, a solid right-hook.

Executed in pandemonium and
Scrambled eggs upstairs,
I scratch a different sort of stubborn
Come a morning in between graffiti,
An anxiety born an impatience for an already evening
And, “newborn,” as I look for the
Baby’s skin beneath battered lash;
But I’d killed that boy long ago.

It’s when I find the green in between cracks,
Concrete pervades and poisoned memories of mother,
Return; they’re scratched upon the stone,
Carved under cheek, knotted in lumber and heart.
I’ve hammered the point upon slab
And before and before and after;
Indenting the first letter to my name, remember me,
Whilst continuing to procure this numb
Nearing necropolis.

The fight’s last night, but the blister’s
Every day, every hour and every minute;
Eternity, as I trace my cheek with *******,
Once with a ring, and the other
A broken knuckle, swollen in a
Twenty-second attempt to never let go;
One more second or so and so,
Ticking, “21,” I fold, letting ropes conjure false hope
And only after the hands have grown frigid.

So much the longer after my heart had
And so much the better.

There was this grief of a
Permanent kind
Etched upon her face –
Light playing shadows
Christened, “Solitude,”
And a dark that’d dance before
The grace of those long gone.

And so, he’d grabbed her hand,
Nudged her cheek with a
Nose broken crooked,
Tender was the trust bent her back
And failed was the promise
As “tomorrow,” never was;
It’d never ever be.

Sure, tomorrow, the day after
And tomorrow once more
Happens for others,
But one more year, for her,
Would be carved upon brow
Come one more drink,
One kiss and the other, dead.

That door’d been destined to slam
And soon it did with tear drops
Abandoning the never delicate face;
Eyes like a reservoir missing fish,
Pupils with paddies depleted rice,
And once again, but one, “tomorrow,”
Shy an hour or twenty.

Crippled, she’d carried, crippled
And carried on, All the way
And with only pennies to show
With a back bent epochs and
Crooked to bury crook; Under dirt,
Under home and alongside
The love she’d never lost for him.

The sands of El Dorado
Lash my tongue under tarp;
Wishes born something golden,
Fried eggs under beds
And homes, abodes in progress,
One peso at a time –
A tale and tear with every grain,
An allowance and granted only
Broken window.

The ragged lump of pillow
Where I now taste time,
Reeks of mescal with my
One white elbow
Tapping one bronze elbow;
Distant, under woven wanderings
And tattered dreams of parents
Wishing well – come subtle guilt,
Whilst the roofs of a prior Tibet
Tap atop my tether.

And while I ponder what strums –
Atriums, tempest and tubular,
I also reckon in what it means to be
Held and held alike
So that I can protect
And protect alike;
She’s waiting for me in “before”
And in Mexico, in the “now,”
So much sooner the past.
So to sooner, broken the future.

And so mothers will cry in kitchens,
Others laugh come the next fool
And yet others, abandon others
So that soon, recklessly soon, my feet
Make a wonderful twist toward away;
But at least I’d had this sunset –
Something to ride off into like the
Liquid dreams off a furrowed brow
And at least we’d had “we” on more time.

Just one more time.

I’d imagined her in the fields of
Tea; one, “she,” with hair born ink,
Perfectly-lined pearls,
A soon to be smile,
Wells for eyes, lost,
So very starved to be saved
And a'tic-tac-toe
Scarred the earth upon back,
So mimicked the sun.
So clucked the tribulation.

We, and after, “we,”
******. We trust
And two necks rocked backward
Under an unrelenting moon,
Could become, “we,”
With an already, “she,” and now the

“He,” a'wander before stars -
A wish and the only she’d wanted,
By name of, “touch;”
So one, the sun scorched rice,
And second, red stained the field,
And so on, the son missed home,
And once more, one son stood ground
And another sun held his hand,
So built, this newer home
Come allowed and growing old;

Together.

I might be
“Here,”
And you might be
“There,”
Better yet,
We might be both
“Now,”
But “Newsflash!” –
The glass,
Between us,
Is just thick enough
To let me see you,
And keep you
From hearing me.