Keep the key safe.
The cross of light around
Your neck, shallow clasped
In throats.

I fall backwards through
Glass doors
The shards of stars
Dance in my hair.
Shake your ruined windows for me.

As if cold, we shiver blade,
You take my blue into
Your arms and
melt my permafrost.

I walk on clouds.
And they are now just stepping stones.

Those lips inside the lips.
The strands pulled taiut,
Ankles hung on coat hooks,
Unlatched, off hinges.

Pile everything you own
Behind the door.
Put a chair beneath the handle
So we can grow old in eachothers ropes

As if you turn the lamps on/off
Just by blinking.
Hold out the strands of ribbon,
Take my fingers
Like a hairbrush

The flames that burn
Until we are scorched roses.

I want to touch
You until all the pearls fall from your fist.

‘ let me breathe my last breath
Into your mouth’

We float across the river in a wreath
Of flames,

Remember us?
The lanterns.

I look at you
Until the forests burn.
Your love my overdose.

Put  all the cities into bed.
Pull the plugs out of the seas.
Burn your other worlds
Other names.

I’m singing in  the tigers jaw.

You Smile with the teeth of every rib.

I rest my lips
Upon the button of your stomach.

And we slide down.

Right to the mirrors
At the bottom of your lakes

I pull up to the stop
Sign and side-blow a little smoke
Out of the window.
Wait for the last burn
Of the cigarette
Then turn to green.

One glance in the mirror
And there’s a young woman
In a Tesla with long brown
Curly hair and bright red lips.
Singing like A Walmart movie star.
**** me now sighs.

We pretend to not play mirror lick.
2 minutes trinkets.

Though I sit up a little straighter
Suddenly self wrongsciouss
And then notice
That my hair is sticking
Up just like a who from whoreville
Ah **** it.

And she lets a smile out on bail
Though I think it’s probably
At the old man waiting to cross
With way too many Christmas bags
of shopping.

And we drive on this endless
Highway of hooks and tumours, one night stands
And one life stands
And pretty moments and heartbreaks and rebounds.
And winning lottery tickets.
And Cuban cigars.
And our hearts call room service
In dive motels.
And then we find someone to laugh with.

and my car is ****
And my hair is going silver
And I hit 40 like an uppercut.

And all of us patch up the cracks
And take the pins out of other peoples voodoo dolls
And dance with what we have.
And do our best to punch above
And throw a trick still.
Like everything was beautiful once
And now even if we fade just into accolades.

We wear a A lucky shirt
A new pair of shoes hung up on the telephone wires
A revenge dress to help undress
The bitterness

A little blue that changes colours
Sometimes
As we drive away

No more a stranger
Than we ever were before.