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

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

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

my father holds
his favorite drink

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

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

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

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

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

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.