The Duke Fears for His Daughter

There was something

about the way he said all

the right things.

Insecurity

is like hiding a corpse.

Eventually everyone else

can smell it.

Yet, the ones

who have grown the closest

refuse to believe

in its actuality:

bloated as it can become.

The Prince Returns from the Hunt, 3:15am

Wallpaper drools

and oozes. Clamoring

stickiness of broken glass

bottles and plastic ones

that never did. There are

dark places he crawls from.

Glares and snarls from.

Declares his paranoia

as his righteousness.

Stubborn as a callous.

Wormed in yellow and chafed.

There is no room

for what they want any more.

She thinks about it

the way she thinks

about foreplay:

Hold onto something

if you need to.

He will apologize

in the morning.

Kept, Taken

Late nights resentments

The onset of weeks

Things unspoken in words

Memories referred to often

in a silence

Rooms get smaller

Spaces get larger

Hurricane

growing in a bottle

Spoken in sunrises

hushed, crisp

and full of the most truth

Kisses given and received

before a day

after different reasons

held in

Remembered, dreamt

lingering, leaving

passing, growing

lying, waiting

faking, bold

Mango

“Sunday mornin’ rain is fallin’.”
-Maroon 5

Your huge-ass bed is a summer grove
from the hours of your eyelashes first grazing
the bridge of my nose until
we have eaten all the fruit from the mango trees.

That time is variable & I have never eaten a mango,
but I imagine them as sweet and as ripe as a fruit
as there ever was to imagine. The way the skin is inviting,
a crescendo of yellow playing softly
into red.

The smell of cement, wet and warm plays
up through your open window.

I mouth words with
rain.

You understand and smile and hand
me yet another un-tasted mango.

Soccer-Moms Say Don't Go That Way

i.

because those are
the greasy corners of oil rain-
bow tone,
brick laced urban
forest floors. Frayed fitted
hats with foldbroken brims. Colors not
what they used to
be. Adopted cottongrime. But the eyes,
they stick to everything out-
shining them.

ii.

My cousin asks me if it
was a gunshot.

Empty plates containing swirls
of yellows, reds
and sesame seeds.

Wasps buzzing errantly
amongst the upright condiments
standing between us.

A lazy cicada crawls out
of its shell, wings
soft as it drones for the first
time breaking the afternoon
silence.

I stare at my hands.

It sounded like a car back
firing to me
but I was never sure
because I still
don’t really know what bullets sound like.


iii.

I can count on one hand
the number
of times I have been outside
of a car on Center,
or Burleigh between
Holton and Sherman.

iv.

Someone died on our block
last year. It was in the alley. Crimson
leaking into places where me and
my brother
dribbled dirty basketballs
in yellow rain boots because we were
too young or too lazy or too
innocent to tie our shoes on a consistent
basis.

The Bird-Keeper

“Then she will open all the cages and let the birds free; they will change back into young girls, every one, each with the crimson imprint of his love-bite on their throats.” –Angela Carter: The Erl King

My shirt is satin & deep crimson.
My teeth bare the scent of a fresh nape.

My hands are composed
of one-thousand tiny bite marks.

But sometimes I cannot help
to hold them.

Their eyes like little glassy opals
looking up at me with terror.

Oh the terror! It fills me
with a heavy warm opaqueness.

Like a blanket of snowfall
beneath a hush of gray sky.

And they sing
and they sing all in vain.

They sing until the night
when I place the veils over their cages.

What makes a man
when distress gets swallowed

by the bold golden throat
of desire; wicked and warbling.

Cages of sterling
and woven birch.

Escapism

There is a large field in the end.
The lingering afternoon ambiance of a honeycomb.
Long amber grains swaying on a fish-hook of wind.
You know,
the kinds that grow right up to you.
Velvety tips of seeds running back and forth on your palms
when you place them towards the ground.
Your fingers playing apart.

A large oak tree stands at the top of the hill regally, a dusty bicycle resting at its base.

For miles and miles there is the absence of clouds.
Just a great
welcoming blue.

Oh the eternal brilliance of it!

What a task it will be when the thunderstorms of rank & file reflection haunt me no more.