all the streets in girl things comely
arms a bit are haired in

               (tan and tan)


the golden crush of whose mute fingers
make blithe the spring
and against
find the night homely

piercingly the mooon against
into slivers thousand make
their drooping slender of cotton haste
as cherry petals,

                             a branch from shake


in the wind to uncurlsome
neatly wan ankles
and fists o' skin girlsome

crease and crease alike(andunlike)

gossamer



                          faintly





                                                          of




pinkest aching to part


To enter loving


To exit heart

you were prodding my back earlier,
pressing fingers into knots,
snaking though worries and muscles
smacking palms against coils,
rattling old ghosts and sore tendons
I gritted my teeth.“poor darling, poor darling”
push more, I whimpered
“poor darling
will these ever leave?”
a doctor could possibly,
but I know what she’ll say,
stop lifting, stop worrying so.

I think my demons find my way into my spine,
and they entwine through osseous
but, I want your fingers on my back,
your knuckles thrashing me until I scream,
because our love is like you trying to destroy these
knots;
you attempt to destroy what cannot be destroyed,

and I love you more every time.

i don’t know if you were in second
or third grade. or what your favorite color was.
i’m not sure if you liked playing dress up or soccer
or if you were an only child or the baby of six.
i don’t who you had a crush on and i’m not even sure of your gender
but what i do know, is that today you were scared because you saw white
and then heard the noise of the explosion, and the screams of the injured
but i’m not sure if had learned yet in school that light travels faster than sound.
i don’t know why you were watching the marathon, but i know that you were excited
and impressed
that all these people were running for twenty-six miles, which happens
to be the distance from your house to your
grandma’s.
i don’t know if you died squeezing tightly to your mother’s hand or
if your last breath was taken alone, while hundreds ran in a flurry around you.
i do know that when you fell to the ground, no longer breathing,
you tripped a wire that pulled out
your father’s heart and sanity.
i know that you hadn’t yet felt someone
trace their lips up the divot of your spine
and i know that you will never get to sneak out of the house at
three am to get drunk in a park.
you will never see the next president or even what your best friend will wear
on his wedding day.
and i am sorry.
i am sorry that someone was sick enough to put
an explosive in the trashcan and let it detonate
i’m sorry that your death was the product of human selfishness and greed.
i am sorry that today you had to feel a warm liquid leak from your body
and that you lost so much of it you
couldn’t bear to keep your eyes open.
i’m sorry that you were eight years old when you died,
and that you barely got a taste of the world before it was snatched out from under you.