this morning I could taste the grout
lathered between the brickwork
of my breath. I was reminded
of how glad I was to have seen you
last night, though we do not know
each other anymore. Some weeks
tone toward air trapped in a drum.
Perhaps we were not each other's
to know. I turn to the smaller pockets
of my heart, its juice against
thick internal cloth quivering
between your voice and my memory,
now a torn open outdoor condiment, easily
forgotten because we were laughing
towards the end, unattended, at nothing
that exceptional; nothing famous
in the way we reflect one another’s
immaculate namelessness. As if I am
a crystal lip of flint just cool
enough to the touch. As if you are
a rich society created by a rich fire
suddenly erased by a jug knocked
over. Bitter is a word to inherit for
survival. Lungs leftover make it a job
to be unsung. But we are out of work;
we are singing. Somewhere
I am a wide open ancient sphere
in the great seizure of many trees,
their leaves loyal to warm celestiality
amid caustic municipal aperture. Nowhere
and its animalia and ancestry
and ammunition. Far away, rust reads
as chocolate; dusk—quietly
swallowing a tsunami just a few inches
below what I wished for you and you for me.
note:
I’m reading this Thursday at a bookstore called Page Against The Machine.
2714 East Fourth Street, Long Beach, CA 90814
6/15 @ 7PM
Hope to see you there!
See you soon! Also looking forward to you submitting a poem or prose piece to Lit Stack!