starch and static,
it hangs above and
residual softness strangles me

Your tepid breathing, arms an
x
lain across my path (your chest)

Are those wayward willows eyeing me?
How many t's and trees will speak to these stormy,
stable days?
in my haze I felt warm and held
it irks me now

your home is closing in on me. I've got to sleep in the driveway. I know
your timers, I see your calendars
seething
like your squared and timely, equal breathing

There is no comfort, in death that is daunting
She waits on those who measure
plans etched into palm,

toil jumps to erase them and
the peacocks and pitchforks all hung in your kitchen
sit and embrace her,
continue to hum
in the straight-backed chairs
and new steep light
seeps back
over our prospective life