The limp and worm eaten alder leaves / won’t stop moving in this afternoon’s breeze
My whole life I’ve played / a silver instrument, a hand-me-down
So it’s true . . . even the formerly respiring / and the brazenly perished can stand to improve.
When you leave for the third time / I drink pink wine and shuffle along // the hall we painted orange
First it was just the sun pulling us in slices toward the sky, / clinging soil, nitrogen and chlorophyll.
Though her finger can’t reach / she’s telling you be quiet / as if there’s a word for it
Without a riverbed you lean / feel your way through this dirt / as if it’s her voice you’re after
The past week was draining / I want to explain
Uneasy co-existence---
I might have acted as the violence of language / had commanded. With strike-speed struck /your saddled stick, eight inches balling in a fist, / your heart exploding.
