"This Is Goodbye, Then?"

In the halfway house, I met you

My mind swallowing particular phrases,

Your beliefs weaving their way back into

Consciousness, mine at the fall.

Some people said we lost our way in

The conviction of chalk-bone eyes and with

Our Father, Son, and Holy Ghost hearts crossed,

Delighting in dirty water.

Yet something was right, I knew not what,

The night sprawled into day, and

Your eyes saw something dead in mine

Come back alive.

There was a way in which you said,

The things that jumbled across

My folding table of skin and bones and tricks,

Mouthing a smoke alarm of substance.

You know what I said—

When the fruit was fingered to its core?

I meant it then, when our thoughts collided,

As the passing of a jilted lover.

I mean it now.

Cross-eyed like the lone cat,

That came to call at your doorsteps,

The night that we both left,

Feeling yellow with nostalgia and fever.

bodies in disguise

clinging to the stem of my neck and the

            tender, soft walls

                        of my mind, you’re a body in disguise,

                                    and I want to tear the…

                                                shadows to flesh, watch your clothes

                                                            fall to the floor

                                                                        are you now as I remember you were?

                                                            Still following,

                                                the same scent

                                    of your thoughts,

                        trailing around…

            like a leashed dog

biting the heels of its loyal master

                                                                                                for want of freedom. 

Disordered Well, At Best

The night’s
solemnity calls out in
feeble mews,
like the bare-wood
chapel pews,
softly moan.


I present myself
a gift to you,
do partake
in my body,
the song of a thrush,
calls out your name.


In suppressed sighs
I hold this night,
a child holding
sand in his fist
on a crowded beach,
drifting figures, moments.


His mother takes his
hand, unclenched,
the sand
falls away, and
in this night’s solemnity,
the present has no taste.


                        …the tight knob of your dresser is so tightly shut,
                           while mine is loose, it spins and wobbles,
                                      like drunken feet on steady ground,
                           open the drawer, your clothes, how neatly packed,
                           and mine? if they find their way back,
                                      are disordered well, at best…

The Devil's Doorway

In the devil’s doorway,

I stood awhile,

Contemplating faith.

He had great wings,

It made me smile,

To think of the angels.

I asked for soap,

Something to clean,

He had bleach.

I saw the devil’s teeth,

White as I burned,

Cleansed into nothing.

But fear not my end,

I watch over you,

A mirror reflection.

Go ahead, child,

Give the dead another glass eye.