You can only see half your face
when you press it against a glass reflection,
wondering where the other half goes.
Like evergreen ferns
wrongly named, in the end
they too will parch and crack
like the smiles and various shoes
that surround me as I lay
on the cold, stone tiles thinking
of all the names I have never known.
You can dial my phone, with guitar calluses
but the ring will just be an empty echo
of all the unanswered calls that left us
half-knitted sweaters and woolen scarves.
The ones that only kept us warm long enough
to blaze that last cigarette, lighting
our way into the darkness. You can fade
my coat and bleach my mane
but I will never be a palomino
in a dark jacket. So marry me and I swear,
I’ll scream until every vinyl skips
to repeat and that same song plays
copying notes in your head.
Watch my needles fall you’ll need them 
for the bonfires in the summer
when you burn me away and roast
the other skewered pigs on display, fruits
of well thought deception and the thrill
of the chase. Put me out
with jazz music and your hollowed
tree-trunk-promises so that only
the smoldering is left. Shot’s fired.
Here’s your twenty-one gun salute.