‪Dancing salsa in a cave‬
‪Makes it harder to behave, ‬
‪But it's easier to repeat‬
‪Your footsteps in the Cuban heat‬
‪With kisses, as I feel brave.‬

always on the very edge of panic

a tortured affliction

I learned to dream of another place

and that place never let me forget

it was to here I was headed

and here I would be free.

Dear, Sweet, Damascus,
Even your vinegar will
attract hungry flies.

Of the tick-tick mark of the train,
the Twenty items or Less that you wouldn’t have needed
had you not been walkin’ down Newbury
toward hopeless following
nowhere mud-feel-footprints.
Motif of heavy heartening rain that scours the courtyard
back ‘round my building
that skillet valley of impossible nighttime.
Ring slipping finger, couple standing farther together and wild a gracious call brushes against the grade of man’s terrible
mountain

There is a little boy
Who walked a dirt road
It was lined with birch trees
He carried a cello twice his size
Dragged his feet
Kicked up a cloud of dust
Took breaks on big roots
Played out of tune melodies to passers by
Newsboy cap turned up
His only quarter a hint

There is a small girl
She has a bow on her dress
A bow on each pig tail
And her best go of one on her shoes
She eats cucumber sandwiches
While her grandmother
All eighty years of her
Drinks hurricanes and talks up a storm with the woman down the block
She learns words like “give a ****” and “lord knows”

There is a gentleman
Hat hung beside him on a nail
Sitting in a tire up porch top rocker
His snores hum Amazing Grace
The chair squeaks harmony
His leather shine tin is crusted from disuse
Never quite remembers much
Still knows mama’s cooking by smell alone
He leaves voicemails to busy grandkids

A cloud of dust passes by the old man
Tickles his nose
Causes him to sneeze so hard he wakes up
Mama and the little bow haired girl
Who giggles so loudly the little boy picks up his hat and runs

he goes to work and sees too many things
for a man who's barely 43
people in plastic wrap
and suitcases
bags and boxes
wash up on the edge of the Mississippi
sanguinary flowers bloom from temples and chests
needles and pill bottles
scattered on floors of broken homes
victims and families
go through so much more
but that nagging worry still pierces my chest
that one day it will become too much
for that man who's barely 43
that it will hollow him out
and that he will be haunted

i know what
the lost girls knew
that the lost boys
wouldn’t tell them
because boys don’t
want their girls
to be found
but the girls aren’t
listening to the boys
anymore