Flame-licked wantons chase
Skewered scorpions
And tofu-tossed blood
To the echoes of heroes howling
“Gambei!” (“cheers!”) and a
Smoke stained Huacheng Road.

Like a scribe before the oracle,
I tuck atop hydrant,
Squatting in an unfamiliar scene
And allow this ink to sink atop paper;

An artist, not so much, but a dreamer
With firecrackers for brains
And brains for the scene
And sense of it all –
I could get lost in this madness;
I could fall in love with this madness.

Swollen knee,
          Come the night I fell;
          Rail iron and blood wrought whiskey.

Swollen knee,
          When the light met me ‘fore the tunnel;
          Far from warm, but a frigid tucked.

Swollen knee,
          As the paper bag whispered the other’s wails;
          I’d imagine my mother crying come dawn.

And the once sullen autumn leaves,

Like my once swollen broken knee,
          Rush ahead for my wishes of spring,
          Bloodied, my palm, and in wait for something new.

Cold when covers for
Others and anger come a
Door closed; vitriol.

Cold when covers for
Others and anger come a
Door closed; vitriol.

Strings sing blunder when
I'd wished you were there a cold,
Cold night years prior.

"Will you marry me?”
     whispered her sly slivers of purple,
          prestige and occasional lie five years later.

And had we not been asunder
     that very same altar we’d sought fallen stars on
          several days prior, I’d have said, “no.”

Sure, she’d brought a bounty oranges,
     but could he, if ever, answer with the hand
          that’d waived like the incense before?

He said “yes.”

I felt the end of
Time inside her; fallen and
Knowing eternal.

Worship is fingers
Awry offering baskets
And ventures 'morrow.

So as the temple with now triple gods
Cracked an only manacle, left,
Further awry became her wrongful right gaze
And even sooner, her sense of self unraveled,
If just before “undone.”
I could smell it, I could smile it and I’d share it,
As I’d been there before, so I pitch her this –
Come next time, hold my hand like a lily atop water,
Bring fruit, lots of fruit,
And never forget our wish,
Never let our wish built atop fortune’s aroma
Hinder what tomorrow could never be.

Agony becomes worn like a trophy,
When the first hero ventures forward
Breathing pandemonium, miasma,
Missed mothers and fathers,
Dreamt, dreams and dreaming;
Allowed, were the stars to explode.

And I’d have let the world die,
When we left, when she left,
When I left,
Walking to the left of the tall oak
Near 2nd street,
With not the mop of twilight hair
Buzzing about, in my path,
Off my path and vibrant.

But in her stead, boulevards break –
Soon she’d be in another’s arms,
Soon she’d be cradled,
Soon another’s song would sing her
To sleep, to dream,
And soon I’d be a-o-k with that.

Her fingers cracked and bleeding,
Lead glued under brow, under hum,
And below the sweet Tian He smog,
So rests my grandmother.
She’s gently handing out hope,
Even more, stale and day old bread,

Hidden ‘neath twitch, ‘twixt grief;
Abandoned were the meals, the bed,
And bath, so that the others may eat.
It’s in the shadows I shuffle, dependent,
With a paper-bag to my left and
Other, my better, to the right,

Whilst we wish the silent skeleton,
Pale and fervent, my grandmother,
Some peace, some bread, two smiles,
And but one star, if only one
For her to wish upon, and one more,
If only to grant her ample and every desire.

Butterflies spilled forth from her mouth,
Like the promises I’d only dreamt to ever desire,
          And just as heavily, entered the chains,
          Bags to promise scars atop soil, long walks.

So come the tilling, the cull and the harvest
When merchants meet maidens, ***** hands wave
          And having seen the second fracture,
          At least I could share in the shouldering.

But the butterflies, eventually to crisp and husk
Under sun, stench and eventual ends prior Eden,
          Dull blades and edges broken
          Like the backs of those that believed before;

She’d be granted her wings, her winds and pomp,
Like the nights in Matamoros had promised –
          Leaving me the luggage and at the least,
          A scent of what love could mean.

I hope that the
Bread
Tastes good,
Because I’ve left my
Bones
In “it.”

I’ve left the bones born
Man
And bones born
Woman,
Bones once a baby
And bones now broken,
Bones bitter,
Bones bled,
And soon bits baked
Only by dust,
In “it.”

I hope that it
All
Tastes great,
Because we’ve all chained our
Souls
To “it;”

And “it” will continue to feast,
Come the hours we’d ‘ever starve,
“It” will continue to oppress
And until we say “no!”
So say, "NO!"

Cellophane mounts,
Where the sacred forbids,
     And my ribs ache a little,
     And the sofa’s rotten,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

Laundry molds,
When the dishes welcome roach,
     And my tongue’s among dry,
     And my ankle’s gone numb,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

The music’s somewhere else,
Where the air’s more stale than before,
     And my finger’s twitch a’call,
     And my ears cry before the baby,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

Plaster cakes the floor,
When the door knocks certain death,
     And my bones start to bare,
     And my shoulder’s poking through,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

Green becomes a the fridge,
Where night’s now alter years,
     And my side starts to burn,
     And my lungs whimper when eased,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

But I am. Oh Lord! I am! And near ends
When the state sucker-punched,
     And I know you feel the same
     And our son feels the same,
Come the dawn prior day we’d fled.

Come the auroras and infinite landscapes –
     Tangents wrought outright constants,
     Parallels perched perpendicular outrights,

          So to call your ellipse,
          When the orbit’s outstretched
          Landing meetings where we’d at least
          Learn to alter tomorrow.

It’s stellar silly, and paths primordial,
     Leaving my layovers for the trials
     And abandoned, the moon’s to forever follow you;

          So to composed and formulae proofed
          Come the time you mother said,
          "He’s just a coma
          And dust best left forgotten."

Quit draggin’ me to space baby.

She signs in the
Rain
So that I may see –
Drizzled words, despots and
Defiance, never defeat.

     And

She cries in the
Rain
So that I may never see –
What could never be cured, be
Culled; our calamity.

     And

I walk on in the
Rain
So that I may never learn how to –
Fix, never learn to forgive,
Most certainly, to forget.

     And

It’s just that simple in the
Rain,
Sign, cry or walk –
We become disposable,
And like chalk on sidewalks,

          We all wash away.

The neon green frog leaps
Unto it’s last bastion of
Sludge.

He thought it was water,
But I know full well
A ******’s been administered.

So ushers in, the acrid scent of
A life wrought nothing more than
It’s surrounding pestilence;

A chaos concocted,
And alchemy rendered man;
For we’ll break this world,

But at ends, the world will hold us,
For our crimes and
For our contempt.

I died the night my son became,
Come his cry,
And my promises wept;

     For the whiskey bottle’d pass,
     And now over one empty seat.

I died the night my son became,
Come his grin,
And a mother now exhausted;

     Held was her hand, held was his,
     Before the brothers who now hold spades.

I’d earn life the night my son became,
Come his whimper,
And our eternity now in wait;

     Such neon! Were the hours, so howl,
     Would and could –

          Minus I and newest day we’d become.

Escapades avoid but the stars persist
When I saunter below the pale elm;
“That” pale elm with –
Whiskey in one hand, “wanting” reached the other.

We could drive this device every night,
And every night we nearly did,
Come every shot, every smirk, each and every –
Shooting star; wishes for naught, dreamt even deeper.

So the perfume would task, talk and mask
The other who could never be you
And therein lays the tale to the tree –
Our elm, “That pale elm where we’d learned,

We’d loved and at ends, opted to part ways.

I blow dust off the book long forgotten;
It sprinkles like the stuff of faeries,
Gold and glittered across a mid-day sun,
A fraction of which allowed,
Through the only portal to me,
My one and only window.

The stars could twinkle somewhere south,
But I ply parallel a pale blue sky,
The trees, the birds, the oak and feather,
Simplicities from which I draw my breath.

It’s when my right eye twitches,
Ever so slightly, that this moment becomes
Ruined, reality and further ruined
By the projection of dead cells and mucus,
My reaction to the mites and memories within.

Soon after, tears from my left eye soothe
Parchment when empty entries persist,
And not from the moment I’ve found,
But upon the book that I’ve unearthed,
A tether yielding the child, “unworthy,”
And a life best to the orphaned,
Mothered by only the winds.

Thus I become the seconds where
The dust has since disappeared,
Moons offer placated grins,
And the magic’s all but exposed too,
Much like the my earlier sunlight –

Jokes behind omnipresent clouds, and so,
I slap the hand that yielded this treasure
And toss the jewels to the wolves below.
Leaving time, and myself, once more and
In ritual, to be forgotten.

I wish to live, but in turn, learn to die.
When she longs to laugh, and somehow,

I cry –

So brewed the complacent,
Floating-waking dreams,
Withering with the wind,
And against it my screams.

Tomorrow’s sausage rolled along the road
And just beyond my hasty, tasty want for a drink.

Amidst giggle and sigh, my cohorts,
my companions and others
Muddle the horror, or meal at ends, most likely

Come this little pigs jump from the truck
Leading butcher.

In silence, I admire the –

Entrails on the highway;  jump opposed shank,
Surpassing my seventh mile for a
Seventh heaven,
Leaving me simply seconds prior Shenzhen.

Sure, little piggy’d never made it,
To the market, to the feast of it all,
But he’d met his end, and on his own terms.

He’d met his end and frolicked upon the
Fields lacking pans and bacon grease,
In opposition the role, the role we force, enforce
And devour time and again;

In silence, I admired the escape.

Thinking at the speed of light must be like –
Touching a popsicle under typhoid’s fever.
Could it be the scent of sorrow for someone else?
An error buried but burrowed? Borrowed?
I’d imagine, “it,” a bird at my sill
And resulting boot through the air;
Broken before(s), bludgeoned becomes,
So cracks the smile, so cracks the mirror,
So breaks and so becomes,
The speed of light.

Sometime an umbrella’s just a rabbit
and sometimes horses are never to be rode upon.

Sometimes a mother’s tears are foolish
and sometimes sons don’t want to come home.

Sometimes pearly whites and smiles surround
and sometimes teeth detach and dagger backs.

But a dream is just that, “a dream is just that” –
but a wandering, but a dread, if only damnation;

and a “ta, tada, aha!” The wizard’s returned before
we realize we’re all magic, fooled and the foolish –

Incarnations, infestations, imaginations,
and messes come ends, damnations, the victims.

Heaping distress and all of our own accord,
your accord, our accord, notarized the

Nooses ‘round our necks.

Salient pools swarmed upon
Seas
Of blackened
Amber,
Reflected
Neon gazes,
And
The love that could never be.

She knew it.

I knew it.

Hell, Even my luggage knew it.

All that remained were the footsteps
And in opposite directions.

Fangcun tea spills the streets
Amid wild migration,
And intent to penetrate the,
“Pearl,”
An acrid and once ugliest river;
Boiled frogs wrought chemical baths,
But come the tea,
Its first and finest smell.

So begins the story –
Tales birthed backs earlier,
And greener the mounts of
Fujian;
With I, the “foreigner,” but learned
When the piano keys
Tremble tumors within the
Nose born a million miles west.

If I’d ventured, if I’d lived,
If she’d left, and she did,
I’d orbit again and again and
Again;
Barren but to tap with one finger
Atop purple clay and sip
On and on and on
For the jubilation and for the hours.

I’d ingest all the ether’s mystery,
I’d dodge yesterday’s bullet tomorrow,
I’d live and if to die lonely,
Simply,
I’d perish knowing,
With a tea cup in hand,
That I’d still taste the dominion over
Self and covenants long forgotten.

That ******
Cicada.
She won’t let me sleep.
She won’t let me sleep!

Won’t let me sleep –
When I’ve worked my shift,
I’ve paid my rent,
I’ve fluffed my pillow.

Won’t let me sleep –
In between harassment,
In between the bill collectors,
The brawls and the *******.

Won’t let me sleep –
When people fail,
When bombs fall
And children perish elsewhere.

She won’t let me sleep.
She won’t let me sleep!
That ******
Cicada.

She won’t let me sleep.

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.

Rust my iron fist,
But let the silver
Always coat my tongue;
A wraith and wrath,
To the taste society has left –
Bitter, boiled, blistered,
Corrosive and
Nearly anti-anything
Come the cuffs around
My eyes
And the bullets burrowed
Backs.

We cannot
Talk
Because we seldom share
Language,
The token tongue,
But still,
We conquer –
Communicate.
We transmit
Smiles and fingers
Pointing towards
Needs,
Wants
And what’s, “next,”
Egg cakes, soy and tea
For the son she’d never
Expected –
He who’d lose a tooth,
He who’d hold her daughter,
He who'd love
Eternity.

Lonely and only the left eye cries
For a past the “right” never knew.
I notice this itch mostly when it rains
Come the dogs that remain silent.
Being the ******* I am,
I welcome it, as somewhere
Not too far ago, I’d dropped a tear,
The last, I’d thought, but maybe,
Just maybe, it’d only been the

First.

The First –

To ***** miasma upon this once
****** dream, static to this once
Working TV, surreal to this forever
Overcast; Perchance and to breath,
To know, to understand, to kiss
“No tomorrow,” a gift only she’d offer.
It’s when the “left” drips parallel,
That I’ve now known life, death,
And how it can it end, mend and trend

A’second.

The Second –

And oh how eternity could endure.

Please let it endure.

Sewer stained,
The street, the pavement an so to
Soak the shoes
Born torment twice and a recurring
Tap upon back;
This slipper, a signature
Succumbed suicide,
Slaughter,
An only sorrow
But lash shared millions,
To tread paths beyond barbed
And a sooner return to my
Land, or its maker –
Wards and shop,
Sweat under, sweat atop
And browed, be the animosity
As I swagger my way through
Haizhu's faceless crowd.

This is the assumption of Arcadia.

Or so she’s said and she’s right
As I witness the
Hunched backs, sea pearls
Stained-bowl rice, bow-legged dreams,
The denizens
And if only to stagger,
Come 12 more hours to shelter,
Simply shelter
And a dread named, “day,” come ‘morrow.
It’s real, as real as the sun’s rising,
As real the sun’s sweating
And as real as the sun’s setting.
So onward they go, meager and dollar
Driven, under whip and promised avarice
So that as guilty as I may be;
I’ll still buy, you will too,
He will too and she will too;
We’ll buy and assume our “Arcadia.”

I spy something
Murky red
And in the
Bottom of my cup.
I wash it down with
Something less than
Reluctant
While leaving the
Rust,
Or assumed iron,
To chance,
This one chance
And not to be
Repeated.

Tomorrow,
Now today,
I spy something
Murky red,
Once more tomorrow,
Tomorrow’s tomorrow,
Again and again
And day after days,
Rusty red
In the bottom of my
Cup –
I grow paranoid.

I empty the
“Keep,”
And creep into every
***,
Tea-***,
Pan and/or
Cooking tool
Seeking
Threatening material,
Foreign material,
And lodged in my brain
Material.

So too,
Amid my investigations,
I’d discovered
Alzheimer’s,
Dementia,
Blindness,
A stroke or two,
And in some cases
Death
Had you ingested enough
Ore,
Or so I’ve heard.

I spy
Metal flakes
Atop
Metal constructs,
Heavy,
Soft, caustic,
And broken post
Point-of-sale,
Broken
And now in me,
Circulating through my –
Spleen,
Kidney
And brain.

I’ve developed a
Phobia
For unwanted edible metal,
A curious
Cereal
Resulting from the
Cartoon
Of my
Dying grandfather,
Once an architect,
Now ten minutes to
Tie shoes –
A brain hemorrhaged
Iron, I’m sure of it.

There’s an innocence,
          Like children playing in graveyards,
                    That we’ve lost.

                    and

There’s a wanderlust,
          Like a dandelion’s progeny,
                    That we’ve abandoned.

                    And

There’s a love,
          Like the echoes under eyelids,
                    That we never forget.

                    And

There’s a task,
          Like sand on an ant’s back,
                    That we endure.

                    And

That task,
          Like the broken backs before,
                    Ends

                    And only when we do.

The ether’d suggested,
          “Say something.”
                    I didn’t.

The photos bombarded,
          “Say something.”
                    And I didn’t once more.

His widow plead, cried,
          “Say something”
                    I couldn’t.

One daughter begged,
          “Remember?
                    And I couldn’t once more.

But I bought a cake,
           “Daddy?”
                    Lit the candles,
                              “Daddy?”
                 ­                       And he didn’t;
                                                  And he wouldn’t
                                       Answer,
Because I never did.

Thorns tickle my throat
Come
The cranes that feed their
Children;
          My son’s already inventing.

The night’s my only staple
Come
The stars that sing for
Others;
          I list in endless insomnia.

Slowly glowed the river
Come
The golden sorts of
Dreams;
          I leave them for my progeny

          And surrender to what I’d sworn.

She sold flowers atop my cigarette’s sting,
And soiled steppe -
A path splattered someone,
Clocks kept prior and piano strings.

She’d be my last resort,
Parallels bottled – Two-tight braids,
Scarred upper lip and eyes deep,
Diggin’, diggin’ deep into me.

She’d **** if she could,
But money met is money spent,
And knifes in backs are bad for business,
So she’d always be mine.

That said, I’d always be hers,
Scampered, sleepy, and with one drunken
Right eye to wander east come
Sin under satin.

But the hour’d arrive, “One” becomes,
And the breeze would do what it does –
I’d see the sea, the sky, and lastly to hear,
She’d set up shop elsewhere;

She’d be happy, he’d be happy,
And I’d be somewhere sullen,
Somewhere awful, somewhere scribbled,
An echo and if only, a stain upon her altar.

I don’t know what hurt worse,
The tick-tock
And clock in all –

Or the waiting,
Just one more second,
The wanting,
One last second
And be ******
The wine stained sand
And buzzards atop ear;

Always to remind of how I’d
Loved and ultimately
Failed.

She dreams,
I demise,

She spies,
I fly.

I fall,
She laughs,

I scowl,
She gaffs.

We’d thorn,
We’d born,

We’d bend,
We’d mend,

And the grass would grow,
And the moon would throw;

When she dreams,
When I dream,

We dream,
We dream,

And dream once more.

The smoke circled halo,
Bent smiles and summoned demons,
Brimstone come a reverent silent
And obeyed sort of way.

I let my left eye avoid.

I’d let my right dream,
As I munched skewered calf,
Innocent, slaughtered, salivated
And my only excuse – Survival.

Toe-to-toe with
Home-field advantage
I nodded from shadows
To the one who scented venom;

Lace tucked slightly thigh,
She’d wink and hours later,
The demon would meet the Devil
And she’d devour –

All I’d known,
All I’d ever know
And all we’d ever be.

She tapped my
Shoulder,
I caught carpels.

The “heavy” caught
My breath,
I feared death.

But I’d sip like the
Wind,
I’d open my sails.

And She’d later smile,
A daughter,
And I’d live;

Eternal.

I watch the moths bounce off,
And imagine every attempt
I’ve ever made to love.
I feel the night like they do,

I feel the flight like they do, futile,
And remaining drawn to the flames;
If only to pray upon altars ash.
And when the goddess leans

To burn once more,
When the mosquito licks my arm;
I scratch and scratch and scratch
To bleed;

I hope the one next to me,
I hope she slices when I sleep,
I hope she plants flowers,
I hope she was jubilant,

And if only for those few hours.

Old Mother’s hands shook,
When pouring my tea
And I’d
Savor the scent of hyacinth.

Old Mother’s hands shook,
When scribing time
And I’d
Wed her fatherless daughter.

Old Mother’s hands shook,
On cloud, under crevice,
And I’d
Lift her cup to lip;

Old Mother’d drink,
Her hands, like the trees,
And we’d
Both cry tears of ecstasy.

I could still smell lavender, hinted
winds from the east I’d once caressed.
And I could still smell that Lavender
When I look down to watch the ants
scurry. Once more, I could still smell
Lavender come empty and my life In
a bubble atop the world. And at last,
the Lavender’s gone, when trees root

elsewhere.

The moon behind palm
Smiles, now,
Like the first time I’d met my
Second wife;

My second life,
My second shot at something,
And in seconds, like lightning,
Lost to dawn.

Ushered came the day that’d drag
When – The sun could burn,
The sun would burn;
The thirst, always there to remind.

So I’d wait on the lawn,
Under that same palm,
Smile; later,
To wed come dimpled stars.