Each pushing beat
is a kind of fall,
a low broken drum
in the hot dark hall
where the heart
is the size of a fist.

Red clouds skirt
over unlit streets
where the moon splits
like a rotten peach,
crowded in
a low black patch
of night-angles.

Again I'm in the same
unhappy plot,
dropping away from myself,
stiffening into one
whose mouth
is a voiceless half-slash
that a ***** fingernail
might etch
in a grit of clay.

Broken machine logic:
if alone, then woman.
If woman, then alone.
The tape is cut too close to the reel.
The night is too close,
& the reel is spinning:
watch the heart
in trembling skin.