Backwards Trajectory

Years of leather molding itself to his skull resulted in this:
a hat that fits my head as if it belongs to me. His deathbed rid of fentanyl but what could strip his
hat of burned wood bistre, the pine tar perfume inoculated in my nostrils from days spent reeking
of scuffed cotton jeans and tobacco musk, caught in hair I cradled against my chest, swept from
my face, picked out of every midnight meal shared by lamplight on the back porch
warm breeze and cicada serenade.

Today I buried my face into his hat,
drew up all it contains and found
it smells only of me, salt wet leaves and dust
floating above the spines of closed books.

When I say theft, this is what I mean.

the cage I keep myself in
has come unbolted from the bed
of the truck I am attempting
to drive myself home in.
and quite frankly
I do not know
how i will keep it from flying off
and landing in the middle of the road.
I am a dog in your trunk
a dog in your flatbed
a dog banging around with every speed bump.
I am the dog you let in your bed and
I am the fleas I leave behind
to bite you every night
red rings around the edges of your socks
and kissing the nape of your neck.

Last I saw H he was hooked to machines.

Only from a distance then.

He wouldn’t have recognized anyone

or his spouse, lying as he lay.

But let’s think of sitting in tree shade

on a knoll. Or a winter night

standing near a big white house

on a corner, a snowflake on M’s eyelash,

her hazel eyes’ dark lashes,

the snow falling fast covering streets

and roofs. Everywhere quiet.

As we parted, “See you tomorrow,”

I don’t remember.

Like the snowfall, it was in the air.

I hate
when daylight fades before I am ready I
don’t speak as well with my mouth open
someday the habit will grow lichen
begging the sky to stay alive for one more
minute. The water is cold! It feels
God I understand
how it feels now. What are you
thinking about? Let this be a warning
sometimes when I start crying I
can’t stop. How does the earth
keep spinning? You can’t just
say it does, tell me how do I
bruise so easily in the winter wait
wait wait wait you’re moving
the world is moving too quickly.
I’m sorry. Anything but leave me
alone here point out a place on the map
and we’ll go there. I’ve tried
clasping it in my hands
prefer to be open
the door. I can’t! I have too much
to carry. It’s so late, not
now it’s too late. God
I am ready for something
good to happen to me. Maybe. Please?
I love

Gulls melt into the grid     re-emerging as liquid

mercury     edging clouds with silver

the man in the green shirt left poisoned

hunks of bread in strategic locations

the water deep here     and oily     aswirl

in black and brown     flickers imperial

with gold flecks and purple depths

a tall man     lives beachside in a rooming house

his endless motion powered only by hatred

this brooding day     proving that rain is inevitable

an armada of dark umbrellas primed to pop up

from crowds of hats and heads flooding the pier

the ship long underway     cutting across

the dirty sea     ignorant of the corpses

of birds     unsure if it was ever really here.

Floating on

a pool of hot glass
Like in obedience to
a dream,
He does not bleed over black thoughts
Rather
, he lies always silent and thoughtful
Till moon tide creep over the sill
Motionless gaze ever fractal, ever easy

Last night
his cries were an empty house
Nothing much left
but vertebrae like wooden beads on a leather cord
Shoulder and hip bones delicate as dragonfly wings
The rest just fallen hair like ash
dusty and discolored
I was disgusted
and ashamed
Instead
I stood naked and backlit in our room
Leaned against the dirty screen
watching fireworks burst like blood vessels
Red and green bruises
on the wet sky

She’d spent ten years at home, only really allowed out to buy food or to try to sell scriptures on the corner of Oxford Road. Now the pubs and schools were reopening no one seemed to have much interest. Caroline started to catch an odd feeling in the air and it might have been hope, but hope for what she couldn’t picture. The blue December dusk was chilly and her toes were wet inside her shoes, just summer shoes really. Beside the bank a low unkempt bush dangled a few branches, their bark shiny deep grey, no: gunmetal, that was the word. The twigs had short vicious spines and odd paired buds, pale whitish green with crimson lines… and one branch, just one, held a spray of waxy red flowers. She gazed at it in something like adoration, then fished up another word from the depths: quince. Maybe hope didn’t even have to have an object, nothing you could see or imagine, maybe hope just came from something, from wherever you were?

We’ve said goodbye twice in the last six months–when I drove away across country and again this morning at the airport.

This last week I wanted to promise you everything but had nothing to spare.

Curled around you in bed, your back to my belly. You call it spoon shape. This morning it felt like two question marks.

Tom Waits sings that when you get far enough away you’re on your way home. I’m on the other side of the world and I haven’t gone far enough, no matter how much I want to turn around and come home to you.

Tonight I want you to slit me open with a curved knife and slide my guts onto the cold tile floor of this six-dollar room, my blood gleaming in candlelight, your bare hands deep inside of me.

I want you to stand barefoot, the room awash in blood and slime, and drape my intestines on a rickety chair to predict a future where hope is stronger than fear.

Sew me together with jagged blue stitches and hold me spoon shape, my back to your belly. Sew me back together and tell me hope is stronger than fear