In the absence, I am overrun.
deliberately
fading sly by some background
(a moth’s blending flight)
shrugging through my crowded life
waltzing slow through bustling drive
I woke up as she died.
No room in a future
for her where I survive.
I wanted another way.
Get around her and out.
Simply leave her behind.
No room in a future
for her where I survive.
No hope beyond the poison darts
I shot at her repeatedly
from the long barrelled, yellow gun
I found under a stainless steel console.
The darts extinguish her slowly.
I was hoping for bullets.
She calls me scum
rotting flesh, pestilence, unworthy ignorance,
Whore of Babylon.
Simply no other way but to
continue shooting.
White tipped darts stick out
from her chest and neck.
Her words slur.
Unrecognizable.
She bleeds blue, bruised blood of coveted righteousness.
No room in a future
for her where I survive.
I wake up as she dies.
she loves to pick at her scabs
peel the skin off
her sunburned nose
layer
by
layer
the discomfort and the
scarring somehow make
her feel alive
validates her existence
perhaps that’s the
same reason she
stays with him
Still air, no breathe or branch
moving, thick sky promising rain.
On the road nearby, a car or truck
revs then ra-rooms away. Mostly,
its red-winged blackbird, robin,
mourning dove, sometimes,
a beagle bays, then settles.
The lilt of female voices passes,
pools on the green, and then the
squeak and squeal of screen doors,
slam. Desk lamp lit, fingers fumble
over morning keys. Each of us creating,
deleting, listening lightly, cabined solo,
fevered with story.
from morning on the face of the one you love,
slice of long light on ohio river, many lost coins,
total cellphone coverage through a mountain range,
rare-root of american featherflower, clover seed on bison feet,
dance of virginia fanpetal, laughter collected from kentucky horse stall,
whistles, rolls, threat of nips of river otters near abandoned beaver dam,
fumes of yellow-orange flash on inner hind leg of one single pickerel frog
freshly popped by eastern hog snake, brief sharp edge of broken falcon shell,
quick unbarbed sting of mason bee, one easy grain of undetectable silt
which sits on secret pink mucket mussel, sanctuary of crayfish smiles,
the last picture i took of your face, rainfall outside airplane window,
waters above heaven! morning on the face of the one i love.
clusters of tiny petals
pink lavender blue
lift
their indifferent beauty
up to downcast eyes
offer
a shot of cheer
into shrugging shoulders
pause
the anguish
of a helpless heart
Try tongue hold
slow swallow
a longer pull of air
Let sky be below
your eyes
Don’t end at your finger tips
