eyes on god
but hands on me
that was the summer
the bamboo swallowed
the peach tree

eyes on you
and hands up sleeves
awaiting the winter
the shingles cushion
the maple's sink

don't touch me
while our world dies

those branches
claw at the clouds like
black lightning
useless, yet
i can't blame them
for i would try the same
scratching my way out
if my roots had fallen
asleep, see
the ground
looks like home
looks like
a tombstone
but the sky, oh
how she sings of
mercy

watching
our rope swing tree
waste to
woodpecker city
awaiting
the glorious day
that sycamore crashes
down
and smashes this
jail cell of a
house
back to bricks

i'm ready to stop
growing up now

i know your history
is more
terror-ridden
than most of our
worst nightmares
but, must i understand?
to sit beside you in the red clay to
snake my arms around you to
catch your hair in the cracks of my lips
as the hurricanes
crash over all you've
been
and
seen, all those
colors within your
eyelids
it's dark back there
i'd imagine
but **** it all,
i know your future
must be brighter than
this

(and i will hold you
'til it is)

your heart lagged
as if it were
running out of things
to beat for
my head swam, mind sank
and it was okay, since
somewhere
along the way
our skin
stopped
crawling
...

dearest
pink phlox moon
glow through that
sugar maple
as say
a heart behind a
ribcage

branches
be the bones
the breeze, the blood
walloping, weltering
starry leaves
the breaks
that leak
l i g h t

into

l i f e
that make
midnight
outshine
sunday

it feels perverted
dry ******* in the backseat
you rode home from the
hospital in
when you were just
three hours old
yet we've laid here
shirtless
four hours like this
fogged up the windows
with racetracks of rain
it's storming out there
it's pulses and giggles and
the radio quit playing
fuzzy then nothing but
our limbs cramping
knotted together and
it feels perfect

wild onions and wet dirt
fresh-cut grass and
did you have to
mow the buttercups?
your marble eyes
roll so easily