Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

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

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.

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

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

I have observed, the theorist
I am

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

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

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

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

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

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

I myself should never have been born

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to