you approach the house in zebra-print pants, wet matches and ice’d driveway,
you stumble to ignite.
spark to flame to enchant the neighborhood with midnight light.
you of the timeless once-was,
of grass or great oak,
you held the family together.
you tried to scotch-tape a butterfly’s pulled-wings back on.

                 [the momentum of love.]

teen boys breakdown in vacant lots
thinking of what you were to them. they
drag girls up and down the hillside, thru holes of the old factory fence,
attempting the ritual of you.
the aluminum hum if wind and night,
of highway lights on the distance.
*** on a tomb of plastic curlings.

you appear in pixels and dark bars,
face painted clown-like.
hydros in your palm, knife in your hip.
you were that girl lost between city sprawl
& old woodwork,
old wooden chairs carved upon and passed back and forth from *** to ***
class to class.

bell.
pizza delivery boy.
grease-ring soaked box and to touch his knees.
the channel changes, and he holds his breath for years,
in the wake of you.