easy visions of hopeful future days
boys with dark scarves and fingertips and
tongues carved like needles
unwound with blue lace
smoke like curling paper scraps
the sky is violet
yellow and gray and aching
the trees are paintbrush silhouettes
home stock draining roots
i caress your ball-bearing palms
like drawing lilies from water's edge
inside the sunbeam we cannot see
dreams of once upon a time late nights
held between bitten fingernails and chapped lips
of fourteen years old
a smoke hazy and boozy loss of consciousness
of movement
of loss