Silently sat,
Thoughts compact
In the mind in the back of the class
It’s taken time
As ideas have passed,
But every bomb explodes, alas
The final tick
Removes the sick
Thoughts that have built thick
The race is still a race
At the final meter.
The time will come
To make a move
For you to
Swallow the leader
And they’ll know we are Christians
We are one as we pray
We are one as we sing
We are one as we worship
And they’ll know we are Christians
We love the children
We love the weak
We love the others
And they’ll know we are Christians
We work to sustain our faith
We work to support our neighbors
We work to succor the world
The curtains pulled back
A disappearing act
Don’t hold me too close
Don’t whisper too kind
You might just feel me
Slip through your fingers
Slip through your mind
I peel my skin back to show you the truth
There is nothing beneath
I ask you for proof of your feelings for me
Don’t tell me
Stay silent
Or say your goodbyes
Riding under midsummer bliss
I see contrast
through an open window of a black SUV.
A young woman’s arm riding the wind
wearing a hospital bracelet
and emo stop signs like a tattooed sleeve.
Each cut drawn with expert stillness
like an architect drafting their own nightmare;
thirteen floors of fear,
and only one emergency exit.
Do you ever wonder
if the reason we keep crossing paths around food
isn’t just a bucket of cold facts
that maybe it’s because there’s a conversation to be had
and once we get to a good stopping point
a number to be awkwardly typed in while you stand over me
as I chew on an orange the way it’s done on Animal Planet
saying “phan” *gulp* “k…you hit me up anytime”
with a hand
kinda sorta over my mouth
to shield you
from the sight of a grown man talking with his mouth full
every good story starts somewhere
For Chris and Katie
Rum and lime drinks
We wave to boats
Along the shoreline
Your linen jacket
My gauzy skirt
Wed the sand
Honeymoon of water
Empty glasses sigh
A spice-lingered aura
Faceted glass holding
stem & shape & color
See thru coffin
for apocalypse watchers
I’m sorry, you’re loved,
let’s go on
O’Keefe, Mapplethorpe,
implication & supplication
The real beauty is I never
have to say it sing it dance it write it
the same way twice.
in dreams I touch my ghosts more gently lest like kisses they come back outside of sleep gliding on the once and future ocean silently save for water slapping at the bent boards of memoried hulls but for the fitful snapping of canvas lulled in forgotten breezes ghost sounds hidden from all but the watcher restless and unconsoled on the crushed detritus sand of times that might have continued had half the hands not moved counter to hopes and expectations
