my grandfather has thin skin
he says
after I watched him buckle after a bunch in texture on the floor
a wire
a corner
a buckle in the universe

where man falters where he is confident to walk
and I watch the blood in a ****** mary leak into the corners of a white leather couch
a drink, spicy and cold
less orange than the purple that swells under his skin
and redder than the faded napkin I wrap around the icepack

he has eyes browner than my brothers
less brooding, more soft with an illustration,
a knowledge of all his children's lives
and I wonder, a tight cliched anxiety in my chest
would I ever be so lucky

to worry
about all my successful children?
or would it ever keep me up
to wonder
if they were happy
or after everything, all the gravel and grit
or after everything, in their lungs, in their brains, in their skin,
smoothing right, all their rigors
humming under their hearth of hearts

if I would just go to bed,
happy they would be okay
or
happy there wasn't a buckle in the universe

glass bubbles in saliva
thoughts putter on a bedroom floor
sweatshirts left on somewhere better,
and I want less of wanting more

clinking teeth and unmet gaze
staring l-shapes from feet to toes
the empty town is a soundless maze
and with all of you, the sounds impose

Someone said that having secrets was like holding an invisible box close to your chest. Nobody can get close and they can't see why.

It's in the ******* way.

I overturned my box, papers all tumbling out--you could've picked up any one and asked a question.

You said nothing, upturning like a fish. Belly-up boy.

I picked softly at your lip, finding a tattoo on the inside of your lip.
It says "*****" but it might as well have said "YOU'RE STUPID" to me.

I tried to pull any information I could about it out of you.
I got nothing, like *** from a stone.

Velvet pants that force hands up
bitten necks allow repairing enzymes supreme;
hard hips felt under broken nails
while twisting ******* never felt so serene.

soft hands run over couches, chairs
cracked voices offer a name--alcoholic
desperate and streaked with age

awkward without the wetness
that allows us to forget

instant gratification has met a wall
in hand is an absence of excuses and a wrinkled receipt

$you trash.00
$owe them.00
$owe me.00
-------------------
$a better time.00

whoever said sobriety is clarity
denied
twelve steps down the church basement
and the suddenness of a fog

I've come unglued
You said once you need me, but I need you
I had no idea and now you have no clue

You're miles ahead while seconds are lost
I'm turned over every inch
from boil to frost

but you're untouchable, at least you say
till I wander into a dark room
in some way, some day

But still I don't know if I'm on your mind
and I still can't know if you're still just mine
or if you'd say, if I could ask
you're
still
mine
but I still think of you, it still lasts.

Brown bottles of cold beer
with a short walk up the street

my feet, they meet
absolutely absentmindedly

It costly exactly ten dollars, thirteen cents
for a glass pack of this beer
and yet you've cost
four years to present
in presence

you're a whole lot more intoxicating
for a shorter time, much more than this pack
much more dreaming
without the fun
without the end
to this long held
hang
over