I keep my soul like
you wear your
socks inside out so they don’t get
***** on the outside.

in the way crows fly
crooked against the clouds I find

love written on the corners of
maps & the backs of my knees that you
kiss with reckless
abandon
and perhaps the crows are
lying but they

could’ve fooled
me

are you really
the kind of person who
licks a finger to turn the page I mean god
who does that
any
more

light a cigarette
with a match made in heaven
lipstick-smudged & bent

red plaid (skin:
eggshell white and
porcelain fragile) flannel shirt.

hands bleached by a
lemon accident in the kitchen
blonde curls softened by sleep
(vague scent of dreams
deafening sound of clocks and
snowfall)
door closed blinds drawn
so they can’t watch the films
that play in her head past midnight
(remastered sepia footage of
children who knew better)

she stares at the wet
coffee grounds dripping
through the filter.
at the
unfinished crossword and coffee
ring on the counter.

dawn:
the light will last until
the sky catches fire and
shoves the burning sun back below the
horizon
and in the hearth of ebony velvet
the stars come to nestle
(embers
they burn out when the man in the moon
left to tend them
falls asleep with a patchwork
quilt draped across his shoulders)

so when she sleeps again
(her bed is warmer than she remembered)
and the coffee is
tepid
(sixteen across)
the other side of the pillow will be
cold.

so speak
plainly, eve
of the nature of dust and ashes
are we all
men of sand
are the beaches made of our
skinboneshair
are we
Him, too, jesus
I mean—did HisDust
and mydust
collide

query:
when adam’s lips
brush your thigh is it only
dust when your limbs tangle
themselves like vines is it dust
to dust to
dust

before we make
love i will take a magic
marker to your skin and
draw the streets
(intersections of veins on the insides
of your wrists) I will
connect the freckle constellations
read your
mountainsvalleys with my fingers like braille I will
drink from the freshwater streams of
your cinema paradiso tears
bathe
in the salt sea of your skin—

a baptism.
before you break me
like bread.