About a million prairie miles
roll out slow from sparkling eyes.
Each night, beneath a blanket
of melting white noise
that distance wraps around your
toes and takes its sweet time
with every
aching inch.
If I could sell you a story
from pursed lips a half-inch
beneath my reddened, runny nose
who knows if you'd believe it?
But I might get rich if you
were buying
my slurring, supine words.
I could buy you.
A new coat.
With your coin.
And I'd borrow it for the winter.
'Cuz mine's all full of holes
that breathe too hard.
Like me,
on my long walks home
through streetlights and snow.
Like you,
in your bed tonight
carving words in your wall,
in the dark, with tongue tucked
tight behind your crooked,
perfect, lovely teeth.
A coat's no good in Summer
(save to improvise a pillow
when I sleep on friends' floors).
But you can sell me back my story,
(half-cost, I'd hope...).
And--just maybe--I could swallow
your million prairie miles,
and stomach five more months
of Sundays...
To read your wall.
Aloud.