say no and your breath paints a line down the road like fireworks set off the wrongway
you laugh
and in the distance, trees catch and the town is blanketed in dust.

i am stitching it into hemlock.

i am feeling it.     our      
                     chairlegs hit each
other on the way out,
wearing the corners down to blonde
                                 ,screaming
  as the birds    
     swarm.


my hands