a glass tripod menagerie
set inconspicuously against
the room's only blue wall:
i reached out to touch
the carnival mirror in the east,
splintering its unbaked ceramic surface,
raining shards of pseudo-sunlight
across my back, in my eyes,
in my side betwixt my ribs;
     (scene shift)
lying among the poppies of
my younger years, collecting their dew;
i was fed pungent sage cakes
baked by a strange man
named Mordecai, who rants about
gardening techniques, espousing
the spiritual value of tearing
the treacherous heart out while
it still beats, as he prepares
more cakes for the remaining guests;
     (scene shift)
in the bleachers, watching old friends
watch a beautiful female athlete
play raquetball with my treacherous
rubber heart, silently glad
that at least she had not
eaten my oatmeal or broken
my fingers off with a car door;
the roar of the cheering crowd
made my ears ring out loud
vertigo gripping hollow chest aching
AWAKE!
bolted upright, clawing in search of the wound, gaspingfranticdiscombobulatedandsuddenly...
calm...
the memory of my eaten heart,
and the look in your eyes
when you did it.

You felt like paper
Flimsy and unsure
I was afraid to take
A picture with my
Mind. You might
Float away when
the flashbulb shines
Losing control of
Everything
all I can
Remember
Is kissing you in the summer
Sliding my hand up the back of your skirt

When I knew nothing else
But the skin on your face
Glowing green in the dashboard light

Another morning off the turnpike
She fills coffee cups for old men
I have memorized the color of your iris
And I play with knives


I have three boxes of matches
Up all night
Coping with addiction
What if in the mind
I could rhyme a bullet through it
I will act as if you arent
And you will be harder to get

I like the variable of your fingertips
And when you hold my eyes
Just a moment too long
If I
Were
To die
Would you throw away my poetry?
Who will sit with you at church?
Let's play a game called: forget it

I've read that people re-write their memory repeatedly,
until we've floated down so far from the moment
we can only think of our pruning hands.
Tiny hills of flesh soaked through from a river of touching
and going.
I am still here.
I kept you whole by building theme parks over
bad decisions.
A carousel of nights where we'd slip away
to try each other on.
Some sudden frisson
roller coaster rolling me closer to
knuckled blood, white bone, holding your hand
during the free fall we were too embarrassed to be afraid of,
but rode it three times just to be sure we had a grip.
I cannot hold it all so I thought to carry just the goodness.
Me a hungry thief with my arms full in an orchard of peaches,
that you gave
like someone who had never been kissed.
Your eyes were so bright and new I swear sailors must have seen you coming
over the horizon at dawn on the last day at sea.
Their skin wet with the voyage as they slide down
to find earth underfoot and look back over an ocean
only to whisper under a hushed northwesterly,
"Finally."