She takes off his glove to reveal
No hand at all –
Birds outstretch
In the shape of a palm,
extending feathers from his wrist.

They are startled by the rush
Of air, as it shocks them into motion.
They flap their wings and the hand
Comes alive.

The beaks work together as fingers,
Able to grasp whatever
She throws his way.  They are flighty
And subject to wandering,
They are curious.

For what do birds do but fly
About to discover the world?
They detach themselves from his cuff links
And wave their wings in a motion of goodbyes.

There’s a broken bird in the red snow at sunset
Drenched in water and freezing fast at the hands
Of two red-blooded boys who laughed
At the feeble chirps of protest emitted from between
The little pink lips of a red-cheeked girl
Her blue mittens were matted with snow and flying fast
Hurling packed ***** of frozen water at the boys
Even as the sun disappeared behind their heads
And she was trapped in their shadow
She dispelled them in haste and in a spray of snow
They were gone leaving a broken bird and a sad little girl
She took the white scarf from around her neck and shivered
The bird chirped meekly as it was wrapped and carried
Mother’s sympathetic smile was not enough
Nor were father’s promises
The bird was put in a box outside to spend the night
As a storm raged outside she could not sleep
The empty box in the morning a ray of hope
Or a damnable void
She chose hope and washed her red-speckled scarf
And in the spring among the many-winged shadows
She searched for her bird certain he still flew

I lost the rhythm of my heart
when my toes curled over those
chemically white grooves of
safety and bleach-ridden tile.

tightly, I wrung my right hand through your hair,
while the left imposed on your hip.
light sprinted past your scalp,
scampering over the night-riddled tangles
while we refused to detach from the grip of morning.

the palm of my skull,
my temple and cheek,
were a part of your hard skin, cleansed from dirt but
laden with chemical residue.

I was afraid your tattoo would leave an impression.

no words fell from our swollen tongues,
saving the humidity from pollution:
we gripped each other’s thoughts straight from the throat.

I ripped away my head from your chest, unzipped
my eyes to stare past airborne drops of liquid
straight into yours
while I gripped onto you all the harder.

finally, the marketing schemes and skin cells
were rinsed and toweled,
leaving us smelling
like everyone else in this,
yet another,
hotel.

Just because we've torn their statues down,
and cast them from their temples,
doesn't for a moment mean the gods are dead.
Land of Ionia, they love you yet,

their spirits still remember you.
When an August morning breaks upon you
a vigour from their lives stabs through your air;
and sometimes an ethereal and youthful form
in swiftest passage, indistinct,

                passes up above your hills.

In lumbering night shadows,
between burns by branding irons
like cigarettes,
We blister talking toungues
and reveal the soft flesh
of ourselves.
So easily, our embers
make incense of our arms
and red, wet, wounds
pool beneath the wrist.
We sat for time,
trying not to scab over;
smouldering our speech
with singeing ire.
Despite the heat,
we couldn’t help
but heal
as dawn cracked, and
in fire of the light,
with hammering heads,
we forged scars
for each other,
for each ever.

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

The law said her body was made for love
The kind of love that wants to show you
just how much it loves you
by sticking things inside of you

hard
fast

Then slower

The kind of love that wanted to make the bible blush
make you quiver; the
kind of love when you put a female and male hamster together.
The kind of love that wanted to make music out of your ******

Love said "This is what happens
when you use
Needles to ingrain the words love
on peoples skin"

It feels a lot like pain did

Like when the first boy you ever loved
said I love you back
And proved it because he held you after
sticking sticky things inside of you
Like how he said hed wait untill you were ready
then said "You're gonna make me wait forever.."

How that guy on the third date said
"Come back to my apartament
So I can put what I want into you
Until you are empty
Because we might call it love"

Until you met a boy
who untaught what the word love meant
never asked you when you wanted to have ***
whose hands never roamed as greedily
searching for places to settle on your body
who didnt wish to make a home out of you by filling you senseless
and calling it his furniture
art
who traced outlines of constellations on the palms of your hands
and played
"Guess the Nebula"

Whose hardness never prodded you in the back
like a protest
in the early morning
whose breath always came easy
never hard
or fast

It was just holding you with no intention to
*******

He said
"Love isnt what you put inside a person
In hopes of making it stick;and naming it after something beautiful
I can pin my thoughts on you but
you are not my canvas. That wouldnt be fair.
I respect your property."

There was nothing broken when he left.

So you **** me
It is off, the sun,
Since you are gone
I try not to think about you
But everything talks to me about you
Vorrei stringerti forte
This night, the city seems very beautiful to me

who knows if you are sleeping


So you **** me
The moon has begun a new cycle
Since I have left
I cannot help but think of you
As everything here cries out for your touch
Non avrei lasciato*
This night, it seems so very cold to me

how could I possibly be sleeping

Speak, Little one. Before it's too late.
Before you learn too much, and decide not to say what you're really thinking.
Before you live in fear of what others will think of the words you say.
Speak, Little one. Paint us pictures of your young, hapless mind.
Influenced only by apple sauce, ******-Doo, the color blue.
You carry with you only whats left of your first blanket.
Sometimes the questions of the Unknown, as "Why" "What" and "How" appear more often than not.
You cling to its cotton, frayed edges. Not knowing how long it will be before it's forgotten.
Like your words, the little things, they come and go.
Be swift, Little one. Return to your fort between the living room book case and the television.
Constructed eloquently of blankets, pillows, and my leather jacket, it is safe.
Speak, Little one, for soon you will outgrow your fort, and become part of a world that's not
Continue to speak, little one, as your words will grow in confidence and importance
as you grow so abruptly and follow no plotted coordinates.
And eat, little one, and clear all of your plate,
So you can get back to speaking, before its too late.