That suffocating
That's draped like a cowl
Over everyone
All the time

That rends fingers to skeletal shard
Scrapes face to glistening bone
Pushes the ground's whispering
Heartbeat right up to the hole
Where ears sat perched and
Peach colored

Until it all becomes a low ring
A dull hum
The panicked buzz of transparent wings
The monotonous
Plink plink plink
Throwing our bodies against
A fake escape

That suffocating
Is a burlap shawl
Sewn by the wind
That you are swaddled in at
****** birth
And a burial cowl
At bloodless death

We all wear it together
And alone
But the tailor makes sure
It's always on

Sometimes my wife
Squeezes me too tight
At night

Like she thinks
She'll wake up the next morning
And there won't even be

                                           An  
                                             E O    
                                           N     U
                                           I    T
                                              L

From where I was
And the way I hungrily eat
The pale morning sun

And swelter in the syrupy
East coast humidity
The sound of cicada song
Vibrating every line that makes
That outline up

I think sometimes that
She may be right

Broken people
Broken lives
Cheated on husbands
Beaten down wives
Living in a fresh hell
Every day
Daughters are *****
And sons are gay
Broken people
Broken lives
Swallowing fire
Sleeping on knives
**** your ******* world view
The cancer lessens without you
Broken people
Broken lives
Leave the gap
The great divide
Let us all suffer on in peace
Wear your absence like a fleece
Keep us warm with the thought of death
Such a waste until your last breath

Geese gather in pools
Fissures cut out by the sun
In the frozen lake

Onion grass hangs limp
Bedazzled with morning dew
Cold jewels in the sun

My sunlit white walls
Pockmarked by shadows of leaves
Caught in morning wind

Crimson maple leaves
Thinly veiled by sheets of fog
The smell of damp earth