cold
sordid, alone

sour milk
I spill and swim in
summer aestus
as kind as they've been
smiles, sharp
glasgow
sin

don't touch me

the dream, gone
the deed, foreborne
the viceroy and its mimicry

wilt, milk thistle
to milkweed's thief
bloodflower
and antelope horns

strike the ear
of my fresh reprise
overwintered, ignorant

surely, somewhere, in the thick of it

the monarch swings
and the monarch strikes

two ends meet
for a sharp excise

galvanize the girl to grow
let whatever you speak stoke

paltering
preying
perusing me

light pools in-between buildings
and she eyes the arches of morning through the blinds
sharp white through concrete divides

summer has lasted quite a while
or has it passed too fast?

anemone, daffodil, mid-august ebonies
terse and kind replies from well-trained staff

flags creep down, half-mast
crawling, as if there is shame somewhere

I can only hope
for hope
to ease some of the fear

prophetic, dread
candlelight or medicine
oxygen and antigens

but I've come in like a gust
something soft and raging

for now, it is enough

seven poltergeists
in seven homes
inopportune
the world and its coasts

and when the tide rolls in alone
will you be there?

a nightless time
a moonless month
sleepless, smiling

watch fear run
with its tail between its legs
when the sirens wail
when hell's lid is popped

you'll be there
honeymooning,
swooning

stay, then
sway your life away

let the ghosts haunt your home
pull the fragile waist
of your misfortune close
take the dance
by its pensive hands

it is a parasite
and you are a gracious host for it

fresh, lockstep
pseudo-symbiotism

I know no one would ever tell you otherwise.

red wine beads at my brow
I wait to wince

poppies dance out in the yard
in the little warmth from seasons since

her feet trail away
the broken magnum at mine

head, heat, blaring haze
scythes at the atlas of my spine

scorn and disgrace
raw and insipid

the sun turns its face
lends whatever light to the wicked

she said she'd put the fear of god in me
but god is not what I fear

not what oppresses my feet
nor the ache of my best years

he does not hang from her tongue
like the prize of her spiced ***

any vestige of will; any spirit, any trace
for any iota of refrain

quashed, quelled
concealed and contained

another fickle whine
another fleeting wish

any mistake I've made is mine
and hers are carried on the wind

she speaks like the end;
the war, and then what's won

no more sour a tend
than to the wounds of what's been done

the world armed to defend;
her foes a heavy sword against a throng so young

infantile infantry
ripened from infancy

what a weapon are my sons

what a kindness she's coughed up