each other’s wrists
and the pull towards something.

i find myself
again, in that plaster hallway
upon
those salt-beaten steps
and the home i’d lost, returns to me
not in molecules. but in fragmented lights.
she fills
me

I was bric-a-brac smashed to pieces during a heart attack;
A spirit released from her worldly oath;
A genie escaping from her bottle;
A servant fuelled by self-loathe.

When my world was ending in an earthquake-
Much like a baby crying from the rubble-
And when they dropped the first atom bomb-
Much like a cockroach in its armoured bubble-
I survived.

like.a call from inside the house
their          prickling
    sediment
  deposit
upon
              her.chordate lineage.its
                  taxonomy.it’s
                    telling time. an
   

e x h u m a t i o n     of
    pores:
       pathways


                     she,      the
=part.hungry
    receptacle

         as
.they rake all delicacies
                            // pressed        
        backwards \

as willing substrate

in howls
in smoke signals           and
in trembling lungs.

casts huge leaf shadows on dirt
and the mockingbird's mocking me.

"mockingbird,"
I put my hands in my pocket
and pretend a smile,
"some things you can't out run,
church bells and a wedding dress,
funeral processions and baptisms,
the cop car radio,

she was so beautiful in her wedding dress,"

I'm pointing my finger up at the mockingbird,
"so I'm a few steps ahead of you in heartache,

it was a toss of the dice,"I tell the bird,

"I threw a handful of rice."

"so don't look sad at me, bird.
everyone gets hurt."

and on her branch in the sycamore tree
the mockingbird's crying to me...

"I'm a few years ahead you...
Sweet One, lonely bird.

I've walked through fire,
stared into the wall of shadow and sorrow
into the cold silence of tomorrow.

I hear what you're telling me, Dear One,
loves been a little ******* you, too,

and there in illusion lies the danger
so please be kind, my friend,

the sorrows that never seem to fade away
become the grey, dark sea,
and sunlight through the Sycamore tree.