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She serves, serves as. Her body-is-home-is-nation.
She does not dwell, she is dwelling.
She keeps the lights on. She fluffs the pillows.
With child, eternal. She is so very...blessed.

She is the pilot light and the pile of ash.
Savior, safegaurd, scapegoat.
She is flambéed, micro-waved,
she is pressure cooked in social sweat,
and then told that she looks “radiant.”

Idolized, pasteurized, tranquilized,
she is bottled, sealed and brought
beaming to your doorstep each morning
for a reasonable monthly fee.

Her hearth fuels all creation, destruction,
and consumption followed by decaf coffee
and polite chatter in the living room.
She is so excited to welcome you into her...home.

She is incontinent. Incontinuous.
A swollen, slacken gesture towards a self.  
She is wet clay laid again on wheel,
awaiting to welcome the coming
divine, un-declinable gift from god.

A fist to the gut, from beneath.

"Cap-ti-va-ting,
sim-ply cap-ti-va-ting”
in Mommy’s mirror,
he tries to be delicate with his mimesis.
Young fingers fumble the rouge tube.
He’s teetering on heels, on toes
not enough grown, not enough.

A falling of chiffon too long,
and shaking grass-stained knees beneath,
On pink-inked cheek and lip, he’*****.

Retching, and sobs over mother vanity,
the perfume struck the awful dusk,
giving him a first taste of an alcohol-laced lust
for a beauty unobtainable; a beauty that can ruin.

DANIEL!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS
TO GET LIPSTICK OUT OF WHITE LACE?!!
JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL DADDY COMES HOME.
JUST YOU WAIT.

Bottled, bound in a brume blue-green,
a mist of Listerine again descends.
And slick, with what’s like shower’s
sweat, there's wipes of writing
on the wall. One thought, on
an endless loop of overcast,
warm marks on rippled sobbing glass:
o             u             t.

Seated, seeping. The mute little girl
fallen down the town well.  
We are half-aware of  the consequence
of these dreams of outside air. Clarity.
It kills me, but I suspect that now
a good deal of this vial’s moisture is mine.  

Chewing cautionary label gum,
(Do Not Swallow!)
We churn the potential
over and over in our mouth--
it taunts a minty tingle.
A curved black mark.
A chasm shadowed.
A welling up of a desire to gulp.

Desire for just one breath, one vision past
this germicidal upturned glass.
To live unlost, unwet, unmasked
a lifetime halled with gorgeous mirrors,
mirrors free from fog.

"A lightning flash... then night! Fleeting beauty
By whose glance I was suddenly reborn,
Will I see you no more before eternity?”
-Charles Baudelaire, "To a Passerby"

The material of the scene burns and
grays, burns and grays in my mind:
City soot in the frost. Cracked plastic.
Broken glass. Cheek creases where you
said your name. Salt stains on a denim cuff.
Scruff. Tartan scarf. Navy wool. Feather
down, laces, leggings, a buckle. Teeth,
fleece, a crumpled hotel matchbook.
No heat lamp here, where we wait and
meet, wait and meet on the windiest
night. Would you scoff if I said
"Love is two strangers trading fire.”

Smaller matter, now, an Altoid tin of
cherished ashes. I have it, and it murmurs
your lines to me, when I crave that kind of burn.
A familiar ice cube down the back of the neck.
These thoughts have sunken—a bag of pennies
in my gut like a phantom step on a dark staircase,
or the imitation of death in a dream.
Saying something about the lateness of the 16,
You cupped your hand, to shelter the flame.

I try to remember the melody.
The harp strings at the nape of
my neck sang mid-shiver, and you
said something else, which I couldn’t
hear over the choir under my hat.
This missing line is my mind’s one
sound conception of Infinity.
And that’s enough for flint.

A lightning flash…then night!*
A flame frustratingly lit, but profoundly felt.
A gasp, a gust like a god's grace, like a song.
Like just enough time for a quick addict’s fix,
like the length of a single, ****** matchstick.

Will I see you no more before eternity?
And do you by chance have a light?

Slow, you breathe. Barrel-chested shelter. Shelterer, from weathers and fictions seen only for a moment. They flutter under the lids, furled and reeled by your celluloid-spun mind. If only I were there. I do not want to be cold. (I am trying.) Just to warn you, I’m a bit of a hoarder. But I’ll keep the edit room floor clean. I am ready to say it. (And I am not ready.)
You mumble these dreams. I promise I’ll guard each like my own. Every word you will ever almost say. Your orphans, your nothings. Your ”please understand”s. And the “never mind”s. They sigh heavy in your greasy paper lungs. Babe, even your un-popped kernels are gold. If only you knew. I lose sleep over that kind of garbage. I remember which closet. Which shoebox it’s in. I am ready to say it…
You want a wider-angle lens for your camera. A few more popcorn munchers at the alter. I want to know just how cold it gets in your room at night. To rustle in drifts of your lightly salted dream fluff. I want to measure winter’s gradient from the bed’s edge to yours. If only I were there. I do not want to be cold. (I am trying.) I am ready to say it. (And I am not ready.)

Late August 8 o’clock is barefoot, and sunburned in the places that are always sunburned. Worn skin and deck slats hold onto leftover noon. Beneath, swirls the near unknown. Blue-black and edgeless, it’s awake but calmer as the day savors a slow-motion finish. Out of respect for the sunset, those at rudder or wheel embrace a lakewide no wake zone. Our blooms of whistle and sigh fill the dusk hour.
Someone somewhere is lighting a fire. It can be felt in the shoulder blades, when breathing slows. A ripe sense of abundance carries in the peach pink light—a promise that the season won’t fade, that deck children never age, and their waters never freeze. The birch chorus agrees, and this false truth soothes tired limbs that know better, but choose to accept the judgement of the night arriving. Because tender are the day’s dying breaths, and a special care is taken here for every move.
Peeling away layers, hair stands high on the skin with the pines on the hillsides. Bundle your things under the bench, or the winds may take them. There is a silence here with something to say. Toes hug wood’s edge and the muckgrasses nod in tune to a song that is there but not wholly heard. It’s important to watch first; it’s important that you try once again to read the neon pattern in the waves. A familiar laugh through cabin window will interrupt this.
The ladder is better for the evening swim. Submergence is best performed slowly then all at once, with careful attention paid to the detoured bloodflow of sunburned skin. Reflections of the promise unravel as they scatter into sky. Dip your darkness into the horizon and feel the day’s heat collapse inward, easing the blushes of your superficial pain. Let the other foot leave the trust of algaed metal, as the body’s pieces spread suspended. A group of fiery orbs blink aloft in an endless cold.
Our stars are connected only by stories, and here—where the sky is reflected in water—the hair on your hillsides can nod along to the half-heard tune of eternity. This is the end of the dock.