S
As if with a spoon,
she scoops the words
from his pliant mouth.
The rounded vowels,
and crisp consonants
shred her tongue
with shards of ice.
Meanwhile, with slick
knives, he carves
all conversation,
leaving bits of blood,
like rose petals,
to stain the ground
in a red-wet lust.
Neither he, not she,
can speak into
what was said.
They stare, stunned,
past empty eyes;
their mouths slack
like the recent dead.
(February 5, 2019)
Am I here?
Can you hear me
anymore?
I am no answer
to your questions,
implied, or stated.
Is this what’s left–
to fade in and out
like a side-show ghost?
Am I here
scratching inside
the house’s walls,
like a rat
slowly dying?
(September 27, 2018)
There is less to do,
less to talk about now.
Where do I lay
my belief like a sack
full of rocks? When
do I shuck off
the tired traces
and stand unburdened?
There is no where
to go, but here–
and finally I have come
to a place I have
always been unknown,
a place that is mine.
(September 18, 2018)
It’s not fair to compare
one to the other where secrets
are apropos to a love affair,
or some distant war as far
as that goes. Yet, what’s to be
done to stop it? What metaphor
within yourself were you willing
to sacrifice? As long as one
doesn’t mind water swallowing
your words, it’s simple enough
to drown in any nearby river.
I, too, hold my expectations
at a distance in order to live—
I’m not sure what occurred,
or even if we were just lovers.
(August 15, 2018)
She picked up his bones
scattered in the yard,
and took them into the house.
Her workshop was cluttered;
so she cleaned off a spot, and
orderly stacked them up.
Days went by, then weeks,
and finally years. The bones
collected dust like mementos.
One day, stumped, she looked
up from her work, and saw
the neatly stacked dry bones.
She laughed as she remembered
him, then went to work:
drilling, weaving, balancing.
She sang as she worked, happy
at last to be creating so freely
from his humble remains.
Finished, she took what she had
made from him, and hung
it from an old oak tree.
It danced a hollow dance,
clattering as the bones clacked
together with every wind.
In the evenings she would sit,
and sip a glass of wine, happier
than she had ever been with him.
(August 7, 2018)
If, then
it must
change in
to dust.
(June 9, 2018)
The days and nights pass
in calm acquiescence. As
expectations lurk without
patience, sad laughter slips
into conversation’s pauses.
We each drink to avoid the
silent ramifications: there’s
nothing to say; and, what’s said
means nothing. A stock phrase
spills from a stock question
in a communal recitation.
Only empty gestures remain
to conjure, with a hollow
dance, the clichés of love.
(May 10 2018)
