The setting of traps
has always seemed
like a tacit endorsement
of the mice.

Acknowledgement.
Validation.
Admission of failings as a homeowner –
(cracked baseboards or an unsealed gap in the door.)

We are usually responsible
for our own infestations, after all.

The relationship with the mice is codified
“you are vermin,
I am not.
I will ****.
You will die.”

Thus the mice are transfigured,
Christ-like.
Frozen in fear,
frozen in time,
laid bare
on a sticky, chemical
altar of sacrifice.

Saviors
giving their lives
so that we may preserve
those unwanted crumbs
in the vacant space
between the couch and loveseat
where the vacuum won’t reach.

I would re-name the planets after galaxies in your eyes.
The stars finally know what it feels like to burn with envy.
There are constellations tracing the soft skin of your back.
Following dips and curves, I would draw maps with *******
of everything that matters.

Freshman science taught us about untouched miracles;
and just like that-
the ultraviolet cosmic phenomenon
fixed us to spiral arms in far-away planetary
nebulas, like the ringed Cat’s Eye.

The milky skies whispered
so that only we could hear,
"Heaven's dust will fall"
You feared last night you could hear the earth
cracking under the weight of the universe,

paralyzed with a crippling guilt
you'll only see the stars after they've died.
Neighboring nova would spectate
our telescopic wavelengths-
needing the prisms to reflect on

our kaleidoscope refractions.
No matter the efforts of a tangible spectrum,
one could never quite touch our frequency.
Between lazy and lively,
our whitecap love remained visibly invisible.  

Our infrared vessel to space, raced clusters of runaway stars
past post-distant intergalactic bodies,
shooting through beasts, astrologies, gods.
We window shopped stellar bursts of dust clouds
above our clouds, a gravity shelter.

Meteors became our faithful companions
glowing gassy flowers of dusty debris.
The pressure (we couldn’t touch) generates combustion;
atoms gazing psychedelic pinks, greens,
soothing tones of aquamarines.

Ever since then you've been the glittering
black hole, heaving me in.
The only thing I’m able to taste is  
the way your luminous Milky Way kiss
gives gifts of halos to terrestrial light rays.

But the flavor of your lips are the
battalions inspiring the star shining front lines-
Integrity a marathon taking laps
to the moon
to Pluto and back, the long way.

Blizzards of stars rewrite our language
in the moon beams,
guiding us past lost letters to Pluto.
How do you sleep among dancing stars
while the rest of the universe watches?

I made my home in your eyes
and you made your home in the sky.

With the sun at it's peak, the dew from the morning's
fog began to trickle off the leaves, soaking into
the ornamental indigo bulbs, decorating
the shrubs with an inedible elegance.

Standing tall and gently swaying, a near by
alder tries to hug a lamp pole or help
it stand, with the ferns sturdy,
reaching at it's feet.

Branches stretch themselves out as if to say, "Good Afternoon"
to the squirrels and humming blue jays making their way
back home, bringing donations found under-
neath the soil that breathes life to all.

It’s not about fitting it all into the car;
it’s about fitting the pieces together
against the agrestic trunk space.
It’s the way we hungrily wait
to spit up our influence It’s
the patient extraction of
a cat cornered conver
sation that is easier
to  shove  under
the innate rug
that is this
chaotic
l i f e

This marks the birthing of monumental proportions
turning a black and white world to one of perpetual
variegated sunrises. You are the furthest thing from
an accident.  You continue to cultivate one step at a
time breathing new life into each set of hungry eyes
waiting to confront the trojan line that produces the
battles in the brain.  What to write next is under the
surface,  patient and dormant,  for the future paints  
you in the adrenaline of other colors.   Instinctually,
I look to you and surrender to the abrupt,  arresting
grip of the ghost of a thought that’s just out of reach.

Words do not echo.
Words do not cry.
Words do not,
Identify.

Scrambled and stirred,
Frozen and baked.
Pulled when needed,
Eaten to be fed.

Pieced together,
Black or white,
Laugh or fight,
Wrong or right.

A sound is bound by key,
A picture by color pigments,
Emotions chemically,
But words contain,
Everything,
And absolutely,
Nothing.

The same word
Can be
Completely
Different,
Depending who, what, how
When it was read
Or written.

What if every word,
Was positive in meaning?
Harmless,
Could not
Destroy feelings.

Words have no senses.
Words have no bounds.
No touch, sight, taste, or smell.
Words have no sound.

Words have no sound.
Unless read aloud.

It flies amongst the stars.
Flashes for a moment.
Despite the left scars.
Holds a place close, yet far.

It carries the fallen.
From mistaken paths.
To reaches impossible.
And develops new plans.

It creates new countries.
Raises dead soldiers.
Stamps unsung heroes.
With a feeling of free.

Hear its silent sound.
Open up your eyes.
Place it in your heart.
Elevate from the ground.

It helps us climb.
Better than rope.
Do you see its shape?
It is hope.

I sank a lie in the harbour,
watched it sink like a stone.
Your beauty an apostle
asked me to live quite alone.

The streets are empty of your laughter
wild birds still flitter and fly,
The children carry on playing
as every rose withers and dies.

The scent of your dew on my fingers,
the place where death goes to die.
A memory that breathes as it lingers
on the fringe of an innocent sigh.

The black dress you left here one evening
full of bats and sinister themes,
drapes an elegant coffin
in both life and my dreams.

Snapshots carved in my pillow
of the place where death goes to die,
chipped with a sharpened halo
once trapped between your thighs.

I found the place we once roamed
with my back turned to the sea,
a quick snap of my fingers
called death to die with me.

Instead he sang as a singer
"If I go you'll never be free,
in dream this love will linger,
in song and in memory."

The streets drowned in your laughter,
wild birds flitter and fly,
I light a candle on the altar
at the place where death goes to die.