A chest of boardwalk
and nails unscrewed,
an arsenal of rusty
marching faceless
graffiti, musty
multi-eyed designs and grinning
tiny men right beside,

with lips rose-pearl, sharp-end.

Right beside small carriages to lend.

Wall art wiping off like a fresh tan
once winter comes, scrubbed
with air-carried sea salt,
reabsorbed into brickish mortar and tin-ringing
structures that overlook sweezshing shoals;
dough-rolled hats kneaded on shake-grain shores.


This is where the wolf pup goes
after it snatches the children of my wide-eyed games,
figments of nativity babies
and their red-cheeked discord.
Wailing betrayal
in a swaddling maw,

Vanishing into these walls,
and like that, more pinched-lipped mini-men
lull this predicament into a then-ling
ceased, ignored as the child-pile
rises in the wolf's den.


The umpteenth hour:

i flip through old calendars and
fill in the boxes of dates and
reassemble daily fates
in my head with pink marker
tracing my palmsandpickingupsomethingwhatisthat—

oh.

just child #62
all plump and fat

growing in my throat,
rapidly birthed
with a nasty cough.

spit in my lungs.
and she cries
and then it's novoctuary (or just june)
and the paws claw kindly, schlep-ripping
my featureless form like knocking at a door,

and this is the departure
of my never-was newborn.