you've been sobbing for
years. Collect them in a paper
cup till they fill up the rivers
surrounding the mountains. Eagles

will drink from fountains
you weep. Water the grass and
your garden with them. Build up
a forest from a thin little stem. Collect

them all in a pool. So, on a hot
summer day the neighborhood kids
can swim and stay cool. Splash in the
puddles they make. Fill up the oceans and

lakes. Don't be so quick to dry them
off of your face. Wash your clothes. Make
a bowl of soup with the salty brine. Drink
them. They're cherry wine.

before age two,
before she walked or wore
her first pair of shoes. She
held down the fort when

daddy left home. He was
the type of man, that liked to
roam. She soldiered on through
her mother's drunken nights,

when dear old mom knocked
out her lights. Mopped up her
***** on the kitchen floor. Home
was a place she called

war. She didn’t have ribbons
and satin dresses. Her mouth,
filled with abscesses. She wore
thrift-shop clothes, moth-eaten

ones, with quarter-sized
holes. She dropped out of
school to get a job. Not a day
goes by that she doesn't

sob. But she holds her
head up high because she
has a new home made of
paper. She calls a poem.

like a ball of yarn
the cat pounced on and
swatted at. Every strike of
his paw I grew small

till I was not at all. I unwind
like a spool of fishing line cast
by a silhouette drinking *****,
smoking cigarettes. He spun

a web of lies like a spider
trapping the fly. I was unstrung
like a harp. He couldn't pluck me
with his fingers. The music

died. The wooden frame
all now in splinters. A rope will fray
when cut. I hung on till my edges
grew threadbare. Now I'm dust in the air.

gold was rust the day
this turned to dust. All
the bouncing dots
flatlined. Swans in the lake

turn swine. When did
the sunflowers drop their
heads? Their bright yellow
petals shed like cat hair

on the stripe upholstered
chair. When did the cornflower
sky sigh with the wind and turn
charcoal? How did the moon

break into pieces when once
whole? The sun's rays douses
its light? What cut the string
of the high-flying kite? Why

July, did you turn frost? Blades
in the yard from standing
now moss. The diamond ring
is glass. Inside of it, many cracks.

infesting my floors
and walls. Eating through
the cherry wood till there's a
hole where my house once

stood. He's a pathogen
invading my body with his,
injecting the poison in a shot
of release like a pent up

sneeze. He's smog, polluting
the air I breathe, blocking
my lungs till I wheeze. He's
a bacterial infection spreading

into my tissue. Knocking down
cells, making my brain swell. He's a
malignant tumor growing every day,
till I putrefy in a pool of his lies.

a little black dot that marks
the end. That's my lot. A speck
no bigger than the head of
a pin. There is no way for me

to win. I build a nest on strings
of words that stood before. My life  
is nothing but a bore. I am not
read. And I sit low. People pass

me as they go. And if there's
a question do I get hooked?
Like a wire hanger in a closet
full of clothes or the curl of

a cat's tail above my nose. And if
they make a point they throw me
a line in the shape of a joint! Some
men throw another dot above

my rounded head: So, there’s two
of us, not one instead. My twin is not
fine company. She's just a copy of me. Men
pause; I jump on top bearing my claws.

like a dream,
but chases me around
like a speeding car down
the boulevard.  It dropped

like a burnt souffle'. But
I wake to it every day, smoky
and grey. It's finished like
a line somebody crossed. I was

tossed in the air like
a coin. Landed on heads.  Cut like
threads after stitching. It was
bewitching! It stopped

like a broken clock. Only kept
time twice a day. But in the rhyme,
it sliced my lines.  Expired
like curdled milk from sitting

too long on the shelf. It closed like
a slamming door in my face. I banged
on the wood till my knuckles turned
red. But I haven't in years put it to bed.

like a piece of old silk cloth
bought at the fabric store. And
stitched me into a pair of pants
a moth ate holes in and

danced. Sliced me like a loaf
of bread. Throwing away
the crust and ends. Sandwiching
me with a ****** between a rock

and a hard place with boyish
lust. He shaved me. And I grew
back as new stubble, short and
hard, till I scratch everything

that touches my skin. He axed
me like a maple tree. And I
fell hard, covering his whole
front yard. Then he took my limbs

and shredded them into his
woodchipper. I was broken into
a thousand pieces. My release is
spreading them as mulch in my garden.

like the seasons
from the full bloom of lilac spring
till his room was billowy grey clouds
snowing in shrouds. He was

a ripe banana left in the noonday
sun, turning from bright yellow
to pitch tar, my Freud smoking
cigar. A caterpillar

morphs into a butterfly. But I
died in his cocoon in late
June. Like a blood orange sunset
at night, down went my light. I was

a silhouette hung on his wall. He
dressed from green to red like colors
in the fall. And then stood bare like
the trees. Empty branches

scratching the windowpane
through the howls. The lakes are
sheets of ice that I don't walk
on. The moon will change by dawn.

off some sea-beaten shore,
riding crestfallen waves
propelling a long wooden
oar. His back is slumped right

here in his rollerblade chair. But
his body is limp as his stringy
grey hair. And when I talk it's
like talking to air. His cheeks,

sunken valleys, pale as the noon
day moon. His face wrinkled and
dried like a prune. His lips hard, and
closed tight as a clam. His belly

is soft as strawberry jam. And
to think I was his doxy back in
the day, when I was young and had
moxie, and his legs were a sleigh.

like a watercolor in a wooden
frame standing in the rain. Reds
bled with the blues to create
a purple hue. She wore it as

a brass weathervane high
in a cornflower sky blowing in
the wind, spinning in every direction
till the **** broke off

like a piece of poptart. She
wore it like a river running into
the valley. There was erosion from
all her emotion. She slapped

it on like thunder clouds
clapping out loud. Lightning
striking down a cherry tree. Swimming
in shards of jubilee.

of orange butterflies
that lies hidden in the depths
of her dress. They cannot flap
their wings. They hang loose

as strings, unraveling. They built
a nest in her breast. She has a
pocket of tears that she airs in
the dark morning before the sun

rises. Before she paints her
eyes in black she puts them back in,
like pencils in a tin. She has
a pocket of smiles she takes out

once in a while so folks do not
ask. It's part of her mask. She has
a pocket of dreams no one has seen
stitched in her favorite color of red

that she wears every night to
bed. It's only a pocket, and a pocket
is small. She scrawls out her dreams on
a napkin. Folds the paper to look at later.

a garden with golden strand
pearls of dewdrops. Even if
the rain stops not a day
go by where a flower

wilt and dry. She’d fill
the rivers and seas so they'd
spill into the land. Every town
build a dam to hold it all in. She's a

tsunami that drowns a whole
army with her water bucket showering.
Like a running faucet that rips in-
between skips of heartbeats and

butterflies. She'd implode
the tallest building from her dripping
into ceilings. Shatter all the glass
in one fell pass. I remember the cold

December when her eyes froze as
lakes. Right there on her face
I could skate a figure eight. It’s been
the longest winter. Tears are

splinters that cut across my skin, like
peeling an onion, layer after layer. Now
her eyes are flames. A crimson rose
buried under the April snow.

is what he gave. Crumbs of
cake, ice shaved. Bits
and pieces are all he
conjured. Can you fault a girl

if she wandered? Odds and
ends thrown in a drawer. So many
times she walked out the door, to
only crawl back and beg

for more. Bric-a-brac placed
on the shelves. These are things
in themselves. A smidgen here,
a smidgen there. That is all

he had to share. Is she just a speck,
flecks of lint brushed off in the wave of
his hand? A grain of sand on the
shore? Sebum sitting in his pore?

like a tall glass of steamed
hot milk. And he spilled it
on the floor. And left it there
to sour. I poured my fervor

like a rain shower
in a grey cloudy sky
till his backyard was flooded
by a full-blooded woman's

sigh. I poured my fervor
on my angel sleeves. And he
lopped it off in one fell
chop like a branch on a tree. I

poured my fervor like cremated
ashes over the ocean. All this
emotion was carried off in a wave,
that became my watery grave.

sponge, turning and
twisting like an otter till
every ounce of water is a rolling
bead on her. She's dropping mold

from the ceiling. Peeling back
layers of paint over the rot. No one
can cover the ugly black spot. A musty
smell of old books and wet

socks. She's a spiked slice of
ice weeping from the eaves into
a deep freeze. She's hot candle
wax trickling down the side,

rough as rawhide. Running rain
in the sewer. Plopping like stones
heavy and wet. Another day lets out
the same as it rose in – draining

she keeps in a drawer
with her socks. Sprinkled with
dewdrops in lemon and
sage. And strings them together

on a long goose feather slowly
turning the page. Her pupils
are a tunnel of deep-fried funnel
cakes. And she blinks like

a lightning bug when she's
wearing a mug of strawberry
wine and buttered sunshine after
a long hard day. Her iris is shamrock

green that falls between a whisper and
a sliver. She's riding the river of dreams.
There's a hint of starlight that she holds to
tight. It peppers her lens with cream.

beaming down on me
with a cheesy wheel smile,
cold as ceramic tile. I'm a smoky
silhouette in a licorice sky,

tracing stars like a mad
magpie. A breezy wind is playing
hide and seek slapping pearls
of dewdrops skipping down

my cheek. Rhythmic chirping of
crickets singing leaves me
prancing in pain. Spinning my arms
around, I'm an arrow on

a weathervane. Drunk on lilac’s
flowering perfume. My head's spread
like a plume. Morning sun pops kernels
in the pan, cooking me up like a flan.

I saw his face I was
deep in the ocean without
a gill. On a treadmill burning
my energy chasing a dream

westerly through scorching
sun, icy rain blinding snow
and gale. Like a dog chasing
his tail only for it to be cut off

and fed to him. The last time
I heard his voice was on a cellular
screen, cold as a steel canteen. I froze
like snow melting on the eaves, as I

rolled up my long cuffed
sleeves. The last time was the first
time I walked. I blocked out years
of pain and held all the rain

in a ceramic vase with holes. And grew ugly
as a ******* mole. He stuck like chewing
gum, in a hard ***. Hadn't thawed even in
mid-July. Faded out in a nod and sigh.

on her little shoulders,
the planets, the stars, sun
and the moon. The countries
and continents. She's a walking

cartoon. She's bent over
from the weight. They loaded
her small paper plate. And she
stumbles and trips because

it's easy to slip wearing
the world across her back like
a gunny sack. She was born
carrying the cross. Her mother

nailed her umbilical cord
to it. Every day she walked
toward the door her mother pulled it
like a dentist does to a decayed

tooth. Batting her around like she
was Babe Ruth. When she dies she'll
be buried in a coffin with a wide berth,
laying her load down in the earth.

that porcelain face with spider
legs in black mascara they'd dance
like Mati Hari wearing a crimson
sari. Hazel colored iris scream

from all they've seen. They've held
back a river with honey glazed
ham. Stuck to their shell like a razor-
shell clam. Frosted cornflower

shadow is painted over the
lid. Curtained in bangs of ink pasta
squid swishing back and
forth like windshield wipers. Nose

blowing gunk out like winded
bagpipers. Or if they were sewn
tight with needle and thread she'd lay
them to rest like an indigo spread.

off like a barbie doll
and don another, a sister
or a long-lost brother to fit
the scene I'd make

the silver screen. But My head's
so tight, wearing the bathroom
towel.  I cannot rotate it like
an old barn owl. If I spin it

like a weathervane, it’d
spill out all this pain. My head's
a stuffed Thanksgiving
turkey. But I'm not swimming

in the gravy. It's so heavy
sitting on my neck. I putter
around like 65 Chevy car
wreck. My head's a fishbowl

filled with dead fish. When I walk
I swish. Or I'll get it chopped
off like Anne Boleyn. Place it
on a dish served to the king.

speeding on the track. Once
it starts there's no turning
back. It's a kettle of
bubbling screams. It whistles

pain in sweating hot
steam. It’s lightning hurling
its bolts between clouds
and ground. But today

it didn't make a sound. It pitter
pattered like toddler feet, stumbling
between fits of sleep. Drinking it
down with moonshine last night,

till the throat was burning and
chest tight. It's a warrior badge
pinned to the breast. A scrawny
lion that feeds without rest.

lie. They curl up like
a sleeping cat into a smile
when she's sad. She speaks
like she's not had a broken

heart. She colors them cherry
blossom. But when she’s with me
she plays possum. Her eyes drip
in crimson watercolors, a bleeding

sky, running into the river. She's a
splinter, a sliver of the woman
she was.  Painting starry nights
blazing through a violet sealed

off maze. And when I kiss her
she’s not kissing me. Her lips are
like rubbing up against the bark
of a tree. And there's no heat.

are fickle. They tickle
my mind. They're cornflower
blue. Running like a watercolor
in the rain, then connecting

together like links
on a chain. They bring me
back to strawberry fields
where life isn't real. And they

steal my hours picking
them like flowers for my dining
room table.  I bunch them
all together like a painting

of a sunset. And they collect,
a debt I haven't paid. They keep
growing. I'm living in the shade of
them. Sewn onto the edge,

my hem. Pebbles in my shoes I can’t
shake loose. I walk at night. Floorboards
creek and the moon speaks to turn
off the gaslight.

past the nose and
lips? Jump down
to my ******* and
hips? Marvel at

my long legs? Am I
a projection, like an image
on a movie screen lying
flat in ripped blue jeans? I'm a

matchbox cover, a work of
art with a striking surface,
a pin-up doll that can light
a furnace. But so small  

I get lost when you
toss me in your drawer
with notebooks, gadgets
and receipts from the store.

in the mirror? She walks
nearer to the glass. But doesn't
look. In fear she'll pass. Wrinkles
replace the pimples on her face. Hair,

gray as a squirrel. She can’t get up
fast, like she’s had an epidural. Her waist
is spread like a jellyroll or a loaf of
bread. Her *******, flat as crepes. What

happened to her milky *****,
the one that fed both her children? Lips
are thin and pale. Nails are short and
cracked. She’s packed on the pounds over

the years. Her eyes are water wells
collecting her tears. The circles under them
are dark as moons. Her stomach is a hot air
balloon on fire making sounds like a screeching tire.

So you want me to quit?
Say I'm too old.
Throw in the towel.
Let my cards fold.
I've been told that before by another -
she went by the name -darling mother
So you want me to give up just like that?
a wrinkled old woman, ugly and fat.
I've been told that before by another-
he lived with me, was just like a brother.
So you want me stop doing what I love
want me to shut up
put out my light
or all the above
I've been told that before by another -
oh ya, let me think....it was my grandmother
So you want to pretend I don't exist-
wipe me off the face of the earth
make me regret my birth
I've been told that before by a friend.
Will you finally be happy when I reach
my end?

he wore
hollowed me out
as an apple core. Pushing
and twisting, leaving

a hole in the middle,
like an enigma, a puzzle
or riddle. The color chestnut
turning to ash. I rise to the sky,

fall and crash.  I cannot
sleep with stranger eyes
in my bed. The body dance
is flat and dead. The pitch is low

and sunk. Who is the man with
stranger eyes I married? The one
who carried me over the threshold
of our home.  Bands of

gold now tarnished black. Sitting
like a sack of potatoes. Should I smash
him or cook him alfredo? The mirror
hanging over the dresser is in pieces

of broken glass. When I pass
the shards still glued to the frame
the woman I see is not the same. She
wears stranger eyes too, in cobalt blue.

and where he lives
his favorite color cobalt
blue, the bars he'd visited,
and the few women he went

there with. I know his breathing
when he sleeps is uneven and
the secrets that he keeps. Because
he talks in his sleep. I know

the musk he wears, and
that he hasn't underwear in his
bedroom drawers, just a bunch of
mismatched socks. I know the

pounds he can bench, his favorite
food, Indian. And who he voted for
president. I know his name. But today
as he walked by he didn't stop or say hi.

before you say something that’ll hurt.
Don’t blurt it out in insults
that cannot be taken away
even with an apology.
People remember their history.
Scars of words past said
have become my suit of armor.
It’s made me hard, not softer.
I cannot hold you close
in a body of chains and metal.
Like a tea kettle letting off steam
I burn you in my every scream.


STOP
and take a breath
before you do something
you’ll regret.
A good night’s sleep will
clear your head.
Take those ugly thoughts
to bed.

STOP
before you do something rash
something that cannot be taken back.
If it cannot be undone
Better that it not begun!!

smiles
than frowns.
A little more
Building me up
than putting me down.
A little more listening
than offering advice.
Wouldn’t **** you
to try to be nice!
A little more gratitude
than complaints.
It’s all in the attitude!
We’re humans not saints.
A little more forgiveness
and holding less grudge.
God, and not you
is the final judge.
A little more love
than hate.
Life is too short.
Why would you wait?

painted black, white and
yellow. In a struggle with
herself. Hunting for her next
meal, scraping by on scraps of

bones and *** appeal. Not a lap to
lay her head or a four-post queen
size bed. Ears sticking out
like pegs, not the type that humps

men's legs. Scouring the scene,
hungry and lean. Living life on
razor's edge. She cannot be
domesticated. Her eyes are wide,

pupils dilated. Likes the chase,
grassland and plains, the open
space. Wind whipping like cream through
tangled hair, danger lurking in the air.

with a stiletto, the **** of her
jokes. And like her cigarette, smashed
into the ground. In a flash, turned to ash
from her smoky breath. Crushed like

a plum tomato in the sauce. I learned
quickly she was boss. Crushed like ice in
her drink, slivers of the rock I was. Melting
in a frosty mug. Like a tin can she

ran over me with an electric mower that had
teeth. I was dented with sharp edges, thrown into
the neighbor's hedges. Like an old car piled high
in the junk yard. Folded up like an accordion

after years of Freudian therapy. My Dreams,
crushed rose petals and scattered  like leaves
in the potpourri. Stuffed inside a bedroom
drawer, lost between the underwear and socks.

like pancakes on a plate
drowning them in maple syrup
till I ate them all. My belly
ache! Or If I stack her pain like

dollar bills I'd fill my office like
a bank. And she'd thank me. Then we'd
take the stacks and blow them at the
mall. Or I'd stack them on the wall

in wooden frames so they can
be contained.   I'd pile them up
like colored blocks and knock them
down like bowling pins and score

a strike so she can win. If her pain
were bricks I'd stack them one on
the other till I build us a home on a grassy
knoll. And we'd live in it till we grew old.

on dotty days lost in
a billowing haze of crimson
lingerie and perfume merry-go-
rounds that lifted us up

in sweet anisette but were
dropped to the ground like
a smoking cigarette. The fickle sky
painted orange didn't

blossom. It turned into
marmalade hurling its seeds
on our show parade. Burning
a hole in the horizon

that plundered our dreams
and covered our eyes in
shards of irascible men that died
at sunrise from the ink of a pen.

lights a saffron ribbon sky
in a tie-dye of rosemary and
thyme. She sits strawberry cheeks
pressed like rose petals against

the windowpane, watching the rain
sprinkle the glass. Her eyes pool of
parsley leaves stringing crimson memories
with a twist of lemon rind. The ring

of the bell swells the reverie
in cardamom and chili. Dressed in
cotton turmeric, hair swirls of
cinnamon sticks she picks at her

scabs. Her world is peppered with salty
dogs she logs in books. In script she hooks
them with her lines. Drinks her *** with mint
and lime. And falls in bed before nine.

bar filled with strawberry
cream. A sugar confection,
that will fatten the lean. She’s an
orange rind, the peel. Not

a slice. She’s the whole
cheese wheel. She's a crystal
decanter of sherry, the
aperitif. The au jus on

the roast beef. She's golden
toast and blueberry jam. Honey
in the tea, mint sauce on
the lamb. She's red velvet cake

swimming in swirls of cream
cheese frosting. You'll get
a tummy ache. She's wholly
exhausting!

like a tape
he tried to erase. He talked
over me.  And altered history
like it was tight pants he let out,

after he grew stout. Coughed up
like a strand of spaghetti
caught in his tonsils. He
fought hard to expel. Blown

out like a sneeze, scattered
in the breeze. I was hanging
in the air, like kitten claws on
daddy's grey tweed

chair. Dropped
like a bowel movement
and flushed down the sewer
after he roasted me on a skewer.

inside a glass
bulb. Passing her days
trying to move when it's up
to her waist. A tiny silt

turned mountain in
size. When did the world
tilt /climb up to her thighs? When
did it fall through so

fast? When did a sandbox
of toys turn a vast prison? And
the floor risen up to the neck? All in
a sliver, a glowing red speck. Grit

stuck in her teeth spilling
into her nose. Filling
her nostrils and inside her
clothes. Growing hives on

her arms like wasps spawn
on the branch of a tree. She'll not  
breathe. It'll swallow her whole
as it buckles her knees.

like a tendril, a thin thread
clutching to anything she can
wrap herself around. Get her
off the ground. A climbing vine. She

twines over her past. A phyllotaxis
crisscrossing like frosting on
a cake. Like feathers on
a drake she loses

her tail. Like the shell of a snail,
a whorl. This girl is falling
up. Like a pinecone she twists
in both directions, breaking

off in sections. Coiled up like
a viper, moonshine eyes
and hyper. And like a spring
she bounces off everything.

are calling. Momma's
on the line. She's commanding you
to see her. But she's been dead
a long, long time. She's banging

against your windowpane in
torrents of yellow rain. Voices cannot
be silenced. A hurricane whip through
your head and wet the sheets,

as if it's raining on your queen sized
bed. Sleep brings on the nightmares. But
woke memories spoke of nails scratching
on the chalkboard that rake you like

autumn leaves. The woman was
a tease, like a comb through afro
hair. And she had you on your knees
and sat on you like grandma’s chair.

around. It's pouring down
inside my walls. I paint them bright
red with cherry gloss. But like moss,
I'm flowerless and haven't

roots. I grow in the damp. She left
her stamp on me with the palm
of her hand, burning into my
face. On my back is an imprint

of her shoe, with colors black
and blue. They match the hue
of the midnight sky. The only thing
I own that shines. She died in

her cocoon. She didn't turn into
a flying stained glass of orange
gold. She didn't pass on those colors.
But she did pass.

and Candy Canes
of childhood cannot coat  
stains of switches. Witch’s broom
sweeps the dirt under the carpet

in every room. Monsters
underneath the bed don’t tell
tales. But they’re not dead. They’re
alive in a little girl’s curly

head. Ribbons and satin dresses
in white don’t cover rips and
holes in floral tights. It’s all
boxed up under the tree. Metallic

tinsel hangs like a flapper’s
dress. Guests stand outside the door
to become one of her décor. Glass
decanters hold amber gold

they swallow down. But they can
not hold a conversation without
screams. They mix it in their coffee
with sugar and cream.

singing on my Maple, a staple
holding my pages together
by wires. But she tires
like autumn’s

sun. Turning her green to
yellow, cooling the air
between us.  She was
carried off in a breeze,

letting go like a sneeze. I was
ill-prepared.  How well we
paired! Branches hung with smiles
and notes are flung like acorns

afloat on a riverbed. Colors bled
deep velvet red. Silence, a knife
slices through my life as a sword
hitting every chord.

dancing pirouettes
in front of my eyes.  Floaters
that jump up with surprise. Dimples
of cellulite on both of my thighs. They're

the grease on my kitchen stove. Circles
in my pantyhose. Embedded in
my carpet like carpenter ants. They
do the fandango every month

inside of my pants. The brown
stamp of aging on both of my
hands. They're cute
on dalmatians but not on

my pans. They litter my face
like debris on the beach. And
they're painted on my liver
like navy shirts thrown in

with whites and bleach. And X
marks it on a treasure I cannot
reach. And the sun coats my body
with freckles from the beach.

wherever I go. They're high
as a mountain covered in
snow. They're deep as a valley
and swim around my head. They're

under my covers and rotate my
bed. They squeeze me tight like
a Charley horse, pushing me back
with all their g-force. I bump into them

stone cold sober, raking them up
like leaves in October. They're thick as
a French accent. And hasn't been one
I can circumvent!

does nothing. You
cannot put that on. You can
not turn that off. It rolls over
into the next year, like a dog

waiting for a scratch
on his belly. Chasing a tale
is like chasing a breeze. It blows
up the tree of the old oak. Like

wearing smoke for a coat. It
does not warm. A nameless
face in the crowd. This makeup is
a narrative screaming out

loud with no resound. Nobody
grows. Nobody dies. It's sits
like a beehive minus the bees
and honey. The box rots in

the sun. The drawers spun
with dust and spilled
promises. Broken crusts and
olive branches.

like gravy on mashed
potatoes. Coated in the sauce
swimming on and around
I was lost. Drowning out

my light, covered in
a blanket of white laying over
me. I turned ash from green, hitting
a deep freeze. Like brown leaves
in autumn choking my velvet

bottom. At first, he was cool
and sweet like whipped cream
on a sundae. I dived into
his dish like an Olympic gold

medalist. But seasons change, and
with it, purple rain. A clouded sky of pink
elephants marching by. Now I’m a wispy
willow smothered in a drink and pillow.

sitting like a stone
in your stomach. Like a branch
a dunnock perches on. The drone
of a deadbeat song. The lull of

a rainy afternoon when you
open the door, your skin wrinkled
like a prune. Your wet hair matted
to your face like grey cardigan wool

that pills. But you cannot shave off. So,
you toss it in your bedroom drawer,
along with the cards and pictures of him.
Cheers to the years you were green

and slim. This pain was an ice pick
chipping at you, the man’s tool! Now
it’s a rusty piece of metal that lost shine.
Cannot cut an orange rind. But it’s keeping time.