I am still waiting for the lion

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.