there's a place for this- this blood
this place where the skin can be pulled right from the lip
a gun pulled from the glove compartment
in warm December this private affair
traveling with passenger zero
into the title of a love song or
narrowing into the wet corners of the mouths
softened annunciations over an early sixties recording

her song brings shakes to legs and swiveling snakelike movements
this Spanish river goddess I do not even know by name who settles the wars of babes and covers the infinite dust of infinite children

there are places like this:
still and magical and pleasantly mute

where she stares back to me returning
the years of eye mail exchanged between us
as if returning a floral arrangement that lost its scent
or a novel that lost its story
and a passenger writhing with envy

with a back turned she moseys
along the dirt path of the arboretum
a small dance in the bowels of her step

somewhere we blend the stories of each other’s pockets
mending the balance of need
hands surfacing in weathered bluejeans