The tanned
Dyed Indigo
firemaker
Blood drinker
never-slaked celibate
wipes away every handprint
Leaves no track
droplet
Puller
of the kingpin
axis
the Arrogant flame
A
desperate

Suture  

Nobody

I find myself again
performing the ritual of changes
at the clotting edge of sunset,
where shadows slip silent through reeds
and brackish waters, thick with primordial mist.

The sky blazes indigo,
fades to ochre,
to umber—
and then to that dreamless, colorless hue
nightfall stretches across the horizon,
serene as a young god in asana.

A delta of sandhill cranes rises overhead,
their bugling, sharp, piercing the rugged dusk—
autumnal, deep,
woven from ten thousand shades of mauve, gunmetal, plum.

One older bird lingers behind the flock,
his scarlet brow an open wound
glimmering against the vermilion cut of sky.
He glides, unhurried, in perfect silence.

Listening to their ragged calls,
I feel my body dissolve into the trembling stillness,
brilliant, vast,
time herself, exhales.

My face reflected
in her scratched sunglasses.
Her crooked teeth,
floral scent tattooed
on my brain stem,
wrestling with the ripe
blush
pink skin stretched
over a naked clavicle.

I am calm
as she unspools,
   inching
     ever
       closer
through sun-warmed grasses,
asking—

Barefoot & electric,
ponytail tight,
blue eyes pinned to
Saffron lips tracing circuits,
playing damage control
with my structure-fire wiring.

She climbs naked through
My razor wired nervous system.
A deep soul cavern spark—
two embers flaring,
momentary,
through the darkened
dazzle,
leaping
Through the cinders
blooming in our ribcages.

I still feel like a boy sometimes,  
tempted to roll out  
toward the edge of things,  
where the Earth falls away  
into silence,  
and the warm dark swallows me whole.

I lie here,  
stillness itself,  
lost in the scent-memory  
of my mother’s dying breath.

I am there, fully—  
with her agonal breathing,  
cold pale limbs,  
and I am outside,  
in the palm’s slow sway  
under the warm subtropic night,  
undifferentiated.

With her final burgundy heartbeats  
fading,  
I am singing  
in the last chorus  
of ten thousand cicadas.

Drenched horse sweat kerosene spill
Hands splintered & suntanned
Watching cobalt blue dragonfly
Land on barbed wire
Carefully

This next instant is creating you,
You—
The core of the naked core,
The primal Verb of existence.

This very moment—
You are the screaming newborn,
Torn from the warm placenta of certainty,
Into the raw, bloodfeast of instinct
Yet intuitive and sage like beneath the
Turgid surface

I know you deserve better,
We all do.
We deserve more than
The old midwife’s cold clutch—
But here you are.

And still, you shimmer,
You are catching fire.
I can smell it on you,
I see it deep within your star-flecked eyes.


Allow me to show you.
Remember how
You are weightless—
Even a raindrop could outweigh you,
You are free—
No-thing-ness colliding with a scintillating glare,
A misplaced sunbeam
Broken through the deep jungle canopy  
Shimmering
Shimmering, naked,
Sacredness itself,
Out for a skinless breathless
dance in the rain.

And that—
That must be enough.