When each second of holding
Is holding too long
I change myself to the perfect night
For what's already gone
You would laugh it off and say
Its already done
But I hear the haunting remnants
Of the saddest song
How can I be strong?
How can I be strong?
The subtle dissarray
And what my life's become
When each bitter drop of black
Night that lingers on
And keeps the stars from meaning
And keeps me from the dawn
How can I be strong?
How can I be strong?
This creeping loss of feeling
And what my life's become

Ice* cold
Like my soul
     Growing older than old
  Melting away
         As the days get hotter
Why bother with the same things
      When everything changes
          And I can't escape the heat
   Of my heart as it finally feels
                   *Defeat

He was so old his bones seemed to swim in his skin.
And when I took his hand to feel his pulse
I felt myself drawn in.  It was as faint
as the steps of a child
padding across the floor in slippers,  
and yet he was smiling.
I could almost hear a river
running beneath his breath.
The water clear and cold and deep.
He was ready and willing to wade on in.

Words were for whispering small
truths or swollen somethings
with the power of rocks, resting
on sifted oceans--back and forth
in the rocking chair.

Mama's song rings
cracking. Almost
the surface. Barely
a scratch. Lightly
on the record. Hitting repeat.
Falling

just short
of an earthy gesture. A smokey
word and a hallowed cave. Lethargy
drifting in waves.

Sometimes we peeled back the sky
and pretended that its whispers never caught us.
With wind whipped faces, and chalky cheeks you rested there,
on the side of the road.
Just moments after
daybreak. A face like molten plastic reflected
off the cadence of the skies.

I see you now, wrapped in metal sheaths
traversing the highways of your smile
to the soft whine of a saxophone.

I'll let you lay and wait
a while, in this circle of morning doves,
tuning in to your pressure points.
Switching radio stations.
And tomorrow, maybe,
we'll find where we are.

I feel him hurting
me. Already.

With cinched waists and jarred backs--
a trickle down my eye, carving out
my lips. My tongue. My spine. Your hands--
the rough carpenter of longing.
I crave to find your center--
the point of equilibrium where
two words meet and
love, and writhe and conquer.

All of me is
vulnerable and molten
and yours.

Yours is something different,
different from mine,
from his. His is more.
His is power. Is Glory.
Is light and strength
and Yours.

And what's more?
Is mine. Is our
breath. Our metronome
and the syncopated
rocking of your arms and the bed frame.
Just left
of center. Just right
on target.