Some days all I do
is stand quiet in my kitchen,
staring blankly
while I burn.

Truth be told
I could stand to burn hot bright blue
sweat out some sickness,
lose just a little more of me.

Our hatchet got buried
in too shallow of ground
and I’ve worn out the linoleum pacing,
waiting for you to realize
there’s nothing new of me left to find.

But when you remember the shape of my name
nature courses wild
through your burnished sawtooth voice
and makes me forget the flames are real.

So I’ll keep singing you stories from my wire cotton throat,
about buried bouquets
sewn tight under the hot sun’s blade
praying for rain.
Hollow jaw beating time like a tambourine.

Until all that’s left
from the days I’ve scraped along
is a stubborn bridge back to past tense truths.
Hope it falls,
hope it can’t withstand a breeze.

Time still may come creeping
like a middle aged man
who can’t remember
the day his last son died,
but knows there’s not a single word
he didn’t mean to say.

Back when conversations
now short,
were once not quite,
so short.