Through Street
faded graffiti
covers the walls of my heart
abandoned alley
Sure, your heart pumping
Or your lungs breathing
Let’s you know you’re alive
But everyone has that,
What makes you feel truly alive?
For me, it’s laughing until you pee
Eating ice cream in dead winter
Driving with the windows all
The way down at night
Singing to strangers as I drive down the street
Hugging for longer than needed
Exploring every mountain and every lake
Holding someone’s hand and
Feeling every wrinkle and callus
Not planning too much of the future…
What about you?
Cut down
growing too bold
cracked brick lifted flagstone
trees conspire to swallow
my mother’s home until the last
today.
i order strawberry ice cream; you were rushed—
go get the one you really wanted, just remove the nuts
i picture you, legs crossed,
face down on the bed, asleep,
half-melted ice cream (cheesecake or
peanut butter) on the table nearby,
& a home shopping network still playing
on the t.v. (it’s your comfort show)
months pass between us, but i see you again,
& wasn’t it just yesterday when we saw that sunset, sang that song?
sometimes, there isn’t much left to say,
so we just talk, nonsense, really, &
the grief flows from our lips: i think this is
just a one-way; oh, he has red hair, & your hair’s
redder today, too; isn’t there always a car there?;
let’s take the long-way, i like this drive
you run your hand just above my arm;
i just like feeling your goosebumps
how did we even get here? when it feels
like it’s always been like this, that we’ve
always burped & farted & gagged & laughed
& screamed—made silly noises & said silly names—
we haven’t always been children, but i think we’ll die
& become the same patch of moss on the creek bank
you begged to come up to my room;
you wanted me to be safe—i had scissors
&, despite time, i ask myself:
how do you still love me
after all that? i swore at you,
up & down the streets of manhattan,
threatening to injure myself, leaving
you in tears
you regulate well now, & it’s just not you, you say,
i know you too well to be fooled by our hurt
Benzodiazepines for relief,
clarity in all things disparity,
I posit my early twilight
after annihilation of gray matter
as though this avatar of mine matters
more than other forms of matter
damnable hubris of ego.
Consciousness defends
arrangements of the moment,
swimming upstream toward cosmic fission,
salmon chasing eternity in small sips,
squint into magnificence of infinity for a glimpse,
squirt roe in mounds of English rows
Are we romantic?
We’re certainly fluttering
I know,
they’re not like mamaw used to make
or like mine, when I mixed
the requisite bacon grease
with the spirit of my ancestors, and
they’re not like the ones at that
new shiny food truck downtown
or thick-sliced restaurant ones
on the ‘whistle stop’ burgers
they’re just adequate, tangy,
with that sight crunch from
the cornmeal coating,
a throwback to days gone by
and all I know is that we,
and probably mamaw if she were here,
call it pretty tasty
