"One firm step," she said. As shallow as she must be, one could think she radiates midnight, and while no one is looking, her lips are similar to Burgundy—soaked in wine and in her drunken state; resting her body as she sat mellowly where no one would choose those seats made for her—deluding herself that there's just too much space in between, and they danced around each other's thick skin while their gazes were fixed on her. "One firm step," she says, straightening her back.
 
Every day, she'd meet her own grim reaper in the shade of the earth's brown mist, kissed by her long, thick lashes as she closed her eyes, surrounded by the people she considered dead. As strange as it was, they didn't know her. There's one string of luck hanging side by side in hopes that she'll live another day.
 
At dusk, she'll attempt to accompany the earth's body at her expense. She'll whisper nice things, and they'll blush at the thought of her noticing them. She'll offer her hand and kiss the molds, and her lips, the tint of burgundy, will now be the same pigment as the earth's body, and they'll chuckle at the sight of her.
 
When the world is laughing at her, death stands still in front of her, waiting for her presence, but she remains still. When the sky cries for her, she gives him rainbows and butterflies, even though he hates them. And when she's alone at night, she kisses the flies roaming around her bed while he thinks of her—but then again, the expression of death is inevitable. It seems like he doesn't want her to be happy. She lets Earth do what he wants with her, even if her skin glows like ivory. She lets him soak her in his dark mists and long-tailed veins, and death starts to interfere again.
 
He shows up in a crowded room with his thousands of soldiers, pretty faces, and partygoers. In his simple armor and at the grocery store, in his childlike appearance and beggar state. She must have been so exhausted from showing up minutes later or arriving at his usual business hour—midnight. Even with the screen, she usually spends the rest of her day. He shows up. Death was persistent. He signifies everything she could've had, even the voices implanted inside her. They named him Death. Sometimes he's a song, a lyric, or an instrument she could not quite understand; the ring before the call was answered; the tap before the keyboard; the lump before it washes down by the water; the movement before she lays her eyes on.
 
He was once a person she grew tired of—but now a metaphor she'll always keep in the back of her notebook. And sometimes, he is an anecdote every old person mentions in their hospital bed. She was shallow, but he was a willow tree.
A swamp.
A locust.
A lover once.

happened upon an extravaganza of spring’s hallmark,
the cherry blossoms outing their munificence of color,
I happened to position myself direct below a tree,
the thicket
of blossoms so, well, thick, that sky was obliterated ‘cept
for pointillistic spots of blue sun, yellow sky that poked
through the
few de minimus interstitial spaces permitted, and was
struck silent, by-for-before shimmering eyes that uttered the
requisite oohs and ahhs,

and

words came to me weeks later,
when the memory, now fully decanted,
reappears
courtesy of a giant tech company’s code tinkering,
merging and splurging the combined images in the
photographic memory
of my devices,
as if to say:
your life is
points of light and color and scent
as you write now
amidst the hubbub of jackhammers, raucous horns a blaring,
the homeless screaming on the street at god,
the fatalistic headlines of hate and
the pallor of a low level haze of perp~gray
between you and your true elfin self,
and you are not surprised,
but sadly, but not entirely,
bemused
that the photo’s true utility was to
remind weeks later
that all that my eyes utter
is not just
woe, double trouble and toil, toil,
but to Hey Jude and George,
step out and see the park on a Sunday
in its entirety and to glory in
your being
by being
a point in that tapestry spectacular
of ingestion, digestion and final comprehension and
a happy
exhalation