Little Boy

There is a leak in the Earth,
quietly letting mercy slip
out,
unnoticed.

Ashes sprout in Spring’s fresh
mouth – her lungs
blacken with ferocity,

a dark mother clouds the sky
of an innocent,
a soft snow lays silent,
begging the earth to warm;
a quick suicide.

Her arms cradle his delicate
voice, she is moon craters
and crackling fire embers,
an Earth of her own.

Heavy waves of blood crash through
a golden heart,
blue eyes sicken and he cries.

Her own waves say goodbye –
and the Earth opens one more time.

I Love Her More

She has a name hanging
in a back orchard somewhere.

Cowbells are ringing. I gave it up
like an omelet to a woman married
to perfection.

I am missing limbs for limbs,
heart for heart. Who am I to promise
life to another broken life?

Her name stands on a balance beam
between two tongues, heated tongues,
a melting puddle of ownership.
Where did she come from?
Where does she belong?

Tug-of-war. I own her more.
Someone who should have been born
is hanging in a back orchard somewhere.

I let her go. I love her more.

When It Snows In The Desert…

there is no grace. Each flake is a poisoned needle
jabbing in my skin.

Every sting of winter is a piece of
her blue eyes,

and
his blue lips barely parted in a box.
I imagine his last breath and
wonder if it felt like Winter,
if it felt like the cold prick of
hell jabbed into his veins.

Winter has chained me to the past.
What is lost weighs more than everything
Winter has ever given.  I imagine her singing,
and if she sounds like Summer.

I know that I am here now, and I can never go back,
but still, I wonder,
when it snows in the desert.

She Would Know

I’m hungry.
My stomache tugs at
an old fetus, belly up,
a stutter in a hot month.

I think, I would paint her
like a spring egg,
or sculpt her like a chess game
where she could be queen

and cut off the eyelids of liars,
like I.

I would give her my hands to do with
all the weapons
and my tongue to speak with
all the words

she would know that she is not a pink
fluff laying on a pillow,
she is a sharp dagger,
a soft poison,

a prowess taking life by God’s
mighty light,
she would know

if she was not an old thought,
if she was not a small white stutter
stabbed out of the clutches
of my womb

she would know.

Incarnation

She would rather I be an incarnation, a flower
on a grave. She made my slumber rough with
sand until I swept it out of my bed.

When I was small, I brought all the worms
and the flies
and the bees
out of the water with the last bit of life
they had left.
For the ones who didn’t survive,
I gave proper burial with mermaid songs.

She never told me that mermaids cannot sing,
and she never picked up
a stick to
dig a grave with me

because I am not re-used bones
and skin
and life.

The Twins

I have been brought a morning in bed,
yellow hands expand my eyes.
I rise as a vulture,
slender billed, nut beaked,
baking for a sun day.
The night salted me; an open wound,

the darkness delivered my twins.
She was duplicated, the little girl,
the golden daughter of heroin and hope,
she was on ice,
waiting for me, to grow.

It was a discrete joy, a time to prevent
a murdered life, to create
an identical heaven.
This time, she was mine.

But, the golden splatter was received
as the sun rose above
shadow boxes, as my blemished hands
become liver,

and we yellowed.
With tattered feathers, “we”
became “I”.
No duplication.
No sweet, heavenly replication
waiting for me, to grow.

Frozen Pond

I have no room of my own. My carpet
was eaten by a vacuum with cold, blue
eyes.

It was January when kitchen plates
shattered. My diamond party,
shattered.
My calm-moon baby,
shattered.

I took her down stairs,
three times to
the snow.  We walked.

To an icy snow pond. Cold
like those eyes we left
three flights up, alone, with a balcony
and needles filled with snow.

We did not skip.
We did not hold hands.
We held breath and
walked into the pond.

I only had two hearts
because she had
one
of her own. Deep pink.
Beating on her own.

Deep.
Deeper.
Through sharp water cold.
Piercing cartilage, straight
through bone.

We gazed through crystal, an open
body,
singing laws of the nameless,
her,
freezing within me.

It is May now, plates have been cleared.
Cuts have scarred
deeper than bone. We are froze in that pond, but I have only one heart now.

I am alone.

My Dad And His Dad

My father is ham,
sliced on the floor. Pulsating.

He is dying.
Without eyes,
without feet,
hands,
liver,
or lungs.

I watch his respiration’s as
they slip, so slowly,
away.

Now is the time for tears,
but where could they be??

He already died in a dream.
When I was young, I watched
his casket get planted in
the ground.
My grandmother was headsick!!
Father was not a seed.

He was a musician,
and a bum with a harmonica.
A bastard!

He watched his father die, also.
His father was not ham.
He was on a rope,
dangling
like a pinata for a child’s birthday.

In The Desert

June,
avalanche came with hammers,
pounding cradle into coffin for me,
smashing off these fingers that wanted.

(St. Louis opens boiling arms
while I drag these
empty things.)

I searched through snowflakes
to learn how
to carry rubble,

I came too late!
It was next spring.

I fell!

Debris soaked
by snow melt,
carried down river,
handed over to desert land;
an arid cough.

Dry woman are vultures!
Using neck,
hair,
steeples,
as steps. A pyramid!

Waiting for their turn.
We reach
pyramid tops
with them, our own tears betraying us,

slipping our own steps.

We fall,
down,
down,
down,

bottomless!
Hopeless!

While dry woman take our
place
as Mother.

Red Rain

Red rain pounding
glass, screeching.

Red wind
screaming with her,
muffling,
burning
red blood lips.

Red man, red
flesh hammer
ready.

Heart sounds
cracking,
red egg,
undead.
Pretty red-head
swelling.

Red rain thrashing,
glass scratching
red lungs,
junkie,
red man.

Red veins try
running
away,
dirty death streets,
stiff beds
under
red beer signs.

Sweet red eyes,
pouring catastrophe,
straight shots,
her
black out

while red man
chases
his dirty veins
through
six, endless, red feet.

Her, swollen
red egg,
bottled up in vinegar
and
a dirty,
red season,

left alone
with

her blue face,
drizzling
hints
of
of a red, red, rain.