after they send the chapters to bed
the beginning and end slip into each other
plotless with heat.
sweating syntax one
word lying next to another
in beds of metaphor
they make love like similes
and dream only in poems.

death hold no triumphs
absolute and naked
do not promise me forever.

The forever I was promised
is hidden under my bed
the cleanest secret I’ve ever kept.
and I never look,
afraid I’ll see
monsters of empty dust instead.

The thin places of half transparent sheets,
are braided between my fingers and toes.
Waking up where daylight and dreams meet,
then with soft sighs, rolls over and goes.
I hear the warm whisper of night mutter,
“Here sweetness is spun to never break.”
But all fractal universes flutter
as eyelashes wing upwards awake.

I must forget how the slants of light were,
sharpness makes silly the beautiful blur.

There is a sunset on expansive lake.
Its lip of waves soft with ripples, trembles,
eyes shed tears of falling stars and still ache,
for something other than what assembles.
Such crowds. Acnes of campfires erupt,
on the blank faces of bald dunes, still preserve.
Beach's eternity makes the moment abrupt.
sand through summer fingers cannot conserve.

Oh sun, ease our smallness before the night,
gild inevitability with light.

you have desperations of joy that you
walk on short leashes
happiness has sharp teeth.
and mercury eyes.
collar tugging back
adam’s apple bobbing of
rabid throat.

Look up, beast, look up, frightened
brief fires.
when balloons bloom they pop
most times
but when they don't
they slip soul-less to skies
away.

when my bike breaks
a shirtless boy offers to fix it
and we kneel bare-kneed on
old sidewalk peering through
grease and stuck gears
until I turn away
as if he is a night-time
I might stub my toe on.