we were too late to you

I imagine my bones breaking -
as if I could feel it

the same note I keep chasing,

the same tone
intonating touch

we were too late to you

it roped you in,
tired you quick
slick and quiet
going slack
into that subterfuge
of thick, dark ooze
sleazing up past your feet
to your knees
that sick, black mire
so much like ink

climbing up through your pores,
into your mouth, your nostrils,
in-between your teeth
with a gurgle and a sputtering

obscuring all of you, anything that I could see

the swathe
the death of your good

where no-one can sort you from the muck -
where no-one should

no-one human

we were too late to you

I imagine my bones breaking
as if I could feel it

from my one day in the centrifuge,
the same note I keep waking to,

the same tone, too -
insensate;
it is rushing like so much blood

only so much I can lose

no-more-touch

I hate the taste,

like pennies and dimes

and

I was too late

God,

good God,

I was too late

wonder is reserved
for nights far beyond the snatching of time
separate from even a catch, a breath, a whiff of it
the death of your good
no peripheral view
the clock so like the centrifuge

none such, because tonight
my head is bobbing on the reservoir -
the waters,
long removed from me

a breath in, just until its dousing me

I breathe unlike you
I breathe, unlike you

it roped you in
tired you quick

as such, too easy
to be too late

Good, good God

far too late

I rush back and forth where it's wet,
in the muck, in the rain -
find good, pretty things in the mud

like flowers in sediment,
stones I'll never wash

imagine my bones breaking
imagine me under the cloche

I would never clean you up -
what a charade,
because I was too late

you decided to give in and now look at what you've started -
here in the halves, and halves, and halves of you

where nothing's left

stunted sot
in deep misuse

in force, and sense, and centrifugal view
you lowered your head for that breath-stealing noose

imagine if I never knew!

God,

imagine if I knew before the bruise

before the bells sounded
under my dress
inside my head

imagine me under the cloche
the bells spurring, jarring off notes

the same I keep chasing,

the same tones -
intonating touch

the same God-awful rush

we were too late
30 years too late

climbing up through your pores,
into your mouth, your nostrils
in-between your teeth

the teeth I think of,
smiling

but you can't see, and won't say anything
long gone in the ink

the letters that cocoon drips off,
squelches,
scrawls to me

in the rain and mud and sloshing sluck
going slack into it

and I, in the cleaner waters,
in the cloche

but imagine what you could do to a pretty white dress, looking like that

pretty and white,
like white doves' feathers

so I'll clean up the same way I used to
cover every bit of flesh

and somewhere inside of the sludge
you could call it your brand-new skin
take-it-or-leave-it

but you say nothing

and I have no doves' feathers
only pennies and dimes
and a couple of dirt-caked treasures

and the ever-present, subtle sense of motion
that I will never lose
from my one day in the centrifuge

the same God-awful rush of notes, and

going slack
into that subterfuge

I decide,
our eyes will close before that part -
always

and the child in me whines

we were too late to you

soft and sallow
sulking, sunder, stroking willow
the sum of his parts
some tender, sundry other
sought southern shores, in silence
harrowing, path narrowing, but smiling
whiling away time – through glass, studying plant life
something cool glides on his skin
the tubes and trinkets beside him
cold mechanical contraptions slid inside him
from winding dolls and winding cars
to the wound machine that sets his breathing
keeps him afloat and keeps him blinking
keeps the wheel turning, lest its ceasing
though, like winding dolls and winding cars
he wonders, eyes following wind whirred plant life from afar
in time they slow and stop their moving
how long til I unwind and set apart

he stops and recalls the scraping sound
from the workings inside as they resound
from the yard, the bark of his hound
as mother trims the hedge around
he waits for the doll to slow its rounds
patiently waits for it to need wound

ice collects around the window

I collect myself, collect my things

pick at the threads hanging from my clothing

on the way back through these heavy-eyed roads

batting my lashes at its sopitive sounds

patiently thrumming strings

waiting for patience to part with me

again

I possess myself

hang from the height of this parting breeze

no doubt that if it's picked me up, it will set me down

and someone from the passenger seat

exchanges a pithy parting glance

again

I possess myself

maybe somewhere unknown

I collect myself, collect strewn things

possess myself to collect dust

and feel it like small bugs stalking up my spine

as the bustle and buckle of the beltway

buzzes and rattles where my back touches the seat

breath fights me for its own space

again

I possess myself, remind myself

it rains somewhere, it's a different time somewhere –
someone, somewhere
pops the top off of their wine,
resigned to the sticky spill of its cherry scent,
drinks it alone and sinks into their dulled senses
possesses themselves to make it their last bottle,
patient for their parting sigh

someone, somewhere else,
pops the top off of their wine
giddy at the squeak and snap,
heart fluttering at the cherry scent
as it bubbles over the lip of the bottle
they present it to their lover
in two carefully poured glasses
patient in their honeymoon sigh

someone, I'm sure
stakes the highway line
somewhere,
maybe not too far from this home of mine
collects their dust in a similar fashion
prone, picked up on a gust of passion
possesses the last small comfort yet to be robbed
in imagining the same system of cogs
that turn under the same cover of sky
and pulls from it a patient sigh

who do you think I am?

I have only been sincere

who do you think I am?

dragging your feet in the sand
cramming fingers in both ears

to stop that noise, that mess of cymbals
but you know where that noise is coming from

I want to see your hands
I want to see you sweat
force them
to be still

I wonder who you think I am
I have only been in love
some poor spectator, through this dark glass

I want to see your eyes
I want to see you take it in

off your tongue
onto my lips

I am so loud
cry and beg and cry some more
you withdraw
compos mentis of enlightened quiet
like
slamming anvil of beyond-earth silence

I only offered myself
bits and pieces, thoughts and thoughts
a nail, a hair, a leg torn off

thrown into the hole we bought

but what sepulcher returns in good
and who do you think I am,
and what have we done to be in love,
and where will I go when we use it up?

from behind the dotted line
that I envisioned

the upswing of human fear
and tending to be naked in it

to climb over the dotted line

to sink in and in

speaking as a child
understanding as a child
thinking as a child
waiting to be pulled to the air

if it will never feel quite right to want
I'll wait until I am wanted

and if the moment never comes, I

what if a bomb drops
comes whistling
waging, burning, busting

and everything gets blown away

before you can peek your head
through that chipped white door –
turn that dumb, stuck ****
come home to me
and call me your wife?

I don't think about it

*****'s got the window open
letting her arm get soaked
with each bomb, fat raindrop
expecting to hit Sandy Ridge Road
but rolls down the skin
of her idle hand instead

her eyes are stuck outside
looking at anything but him,

the cigarette occupying his lips
the screaming, mountain-dew-yellow of his shirt

wondering where she and he and they and them
and whoever will go after this

I don't think about it

me after you, you after I
anything in-between
if we come falling
like big bombs of raindrops

scatter into feathers
like those sparrows sold two farthings

God says He sees
tell me not to worry

tell me not to think about it

a rose climbs from this second row step
like a wound, always bleeding

under a wolf's moon
all the debt that you incur
under a wolf's moon
where the air eats at his fur

his expiry
like lily and ragweed

how much more effective death seems,
in the dark

where there goes a howling
comes more, goes two, goes three -

and even sleep is a poor divider;
a straw between the fire and he

I watch,
and my heart goes, so unfettered
so that even homer nods
clinging to red-letters
with my last little finger
'til he's gone

if there is a will
there is a was -

and if there is one of those,
there is a still,

and so they'll go wherever they will, now won't they?

but
here on Buridan's bridge
I've been standing so long
I've grown into it

like a lone flake of verdigris

here on Buridan's bridge
I've been standing so long

the moths have been eating my clothes

and even though I can crane my head and see the sky—which is endless and going to swallow me up if I'm here even a second longer—and I can let my head fall and see my feet—planted on the bridge above the sea that is the sky's tongue ready to lap me—east is west and down is up and

I don't know much of anything I used to

forks scrape against plates
along lips, along tongues

those moving things
that seem to go and never stop

strike right through the quiet
the mind is futile to create

quick, cold prongs
into that special-occasion steak

words come out,
lips curve upward,

and the laughing pressure's on

it's automatic

"ha, ha,"

a grind of the knife,
stroke of the napkin

applied knowledge
purely reactive

sort of movement,
sort of laughing

the ground is all
but under my feet
and
i lose grip
on whatever tethers me

my breath
as a bitten, threadbare rope

still

prolonged to cling to connate hope

somewhere between old and new moon

in dark,
i linger
on my last swoon
sit somewhere sidereal
seething in its last touch feel

unsure of how to temper it
and how my want to decrements

still

i want to land on solid ground

and hope to hear a voice call out
as stars tangle above earth's crown

her sweater was white.

white.

I go in, I come out

I go in, I come out, I go in —

white,

white,

white,

white,

red,

red,

red,

red,

black,

black,
­
black,

black

my hands smell like
solvents and

her sweater

was white

I go out to smoke
go into the egress
between these two shops
make my way into that little artery

the vein that splits open for air,
like mine for love
onto the path that opens like a mouth
just to consume

because people walk all around
sprawling about,
in and out of stores
carrying their crumbs and things
and it could be like
I'm on the promontory that overlooks it all, on the infinity of the outside edge, the border of glass, and they are so small,
such that they're like ants,
only I'm the ant

and they are not small at all

and her sweater

was
white

so why is it red?

was it always red?

I go out, I come in
I come out, and go in
take the whole cigarette in one long, torn up draw
and the next time I see her, her sweater is black

was it always black?

so I do it again

I wait

eye the clock

a group of five twelve times, thats a minute, but five times twelve times for sixty times to be nine and every hand just moves along, and

I take another smoke break
and my veins are curling in on themselves because
I go in

and her sweater

is red

and I can't stand it because the faucet in the bathroom is burning hot
no matter how far I tilt it to blue
but the metal is so cold against my palm

and the broom makes this terrible sound on the floor, like it's groaning to stop
and every time I look away and look back again, her sweater is

white,

white,

white,

white,

red,

red,

red,

red,

black,

black,
­
black,

black

and it's not the flickering light above me
that ticks on and on like the clock because
we're some one hundred paces apart
and whether she's in the sun of the storefront
or under the cold fluorescent bulbs
the color of her sweater doesn't swap, I realise, unless I blink

so I don't blink when she catches my gaze
and I don't blink when I wrap up my shift alone
and I don't blink when she's saying "good evening,"

and I don't blink the whole way home

I saw them overhead
each one, rushing in
like the sea meets the sand

oh, God
I saw them overhead

I took her by the hand

then by the hair

then by the leg

I had a reason

and whingers cry on television

found her dead in pieces

but I had a reason