As my frontal lobe articulates
from the anterior, just under
my forehead, I understand
why sweat beaded upon my
upper lip and my eyes bled

Spilling words onto a sheet
of paper, ink stains shaped
like a swarm of angry bees.
Crisping like raisins too long
in the sun, angling on a hook
that captures May like a
golden sunset dying on a breeze

Messages in Cherry Red reflecting
on the mirror to be read back after
an intoxicating night. Never would
the words remain in the steam of
a quiet shower that washes away
remnants of sorrow or a quaking
knowledge that what the lipstick
says just might happen to be right

A table set for twenty six as only
one will attend to partake of seven
courses of molasses and fake hope
Pacing up and down, rearranging
the letters in a potion of epic…ness
that can only come from plucking
consonants from a burning lava,
scraping the bottom of the barrel
for a vowel in the Alphagetti soup

There is the napkin I blew my nose
into which only had a phone number
on it. It turned into 8 reasons why
I would never bother to call
And there is the corner of my duvet
that I dribbled on but the pattern
resembled all my shattered dreams
that poured out of my mouth while
sleeping and became my greatest fall

Here is the ultrasound that has a few
words that sum up what the world
means to me and a picture of our daughter
This is the 15 scraps of paper that you
wrote 15 different lines of love to me
and they are all in the box, being loved
just as everything else ought to.

There are books and printouts and bits
of cardboard and a piece of driftwood
that I used to scratch a few words in
with a rock along with the photo of
the words written inside a heart on a
beach that was one thousand kilometers
away from you but I was there and
you were not.

There is 3.4 gig on a computer and
a gazillion that are frothing inside a
compartment that is internalized and labeled
Someday To Be Said. No matter where or
how or why or now or latter on paper or
engraved in rock on a elaborately carved stone
or chasing their own tails in their own head
Folded like a paper plane and launched
into a rabid universe words will land where
they will, dressed as they are, happy the party
is still in full swing. They don’t wonder
if the landing is soft, they fall, and then
they become still.

**Happy Landing