When in Charleston you
eat fried pickles
drink cheap and
pass out a
few feet from where you
gave your heart
to an island girl
a girl who wrinkled her nose as
a sign and said she once saw
children
painting the grass red like
my eyes before she
****** the fireball from
my lips and spat it out like tobacco

you look undamaged she said
before she turned my forearm
and licked the scars
as I wondered how chest bones open
and how to give what is already
torn like
communist pamphlets
but she scratched my cheek
leaned her head on my words
I can twist my legs around a branch
and walk on my hands she said
what makes you think I won't walk miles to twist them around you?