We'll wash our hearts with coffee until they become the color of the swirling liquid earth.

They'll breathe in the aroma and anoint  themselves with the curls of richness
     Dancing an escape from the brim of the mugs.

We'll pray to the weathered hands that harvested the beans that even in the biting briskness and cowardly violence of this world
     We may become warm and hearty and nurturing      
          like that with which we fill our cups.

I feel as though
I've been letting red wine pass through my lips
Tasting only it's bitterness and none of it's beautiful numb

I've been crunching on cardboard that I've mistaken for holy
communion
And everyone else is too ashamed for my sake to call me a fool

I've been in a fevered, drugged up half dream, unable to escape the waking world and never having touched a pill

My whole perception is teetering and careening
Seasick between inability to escape, and everything feeling unnervingly too real

But nothing is beautiful in this fairy land.

I want to press your kisses between the pages of a book
     Like dried flowers from a June day
Your lips flutter over my cheeks, my nose
     the throbbing valley of my throat
And I'm convinced you must be a hummingbird

Each kiss feels like a bouquet
     You must have drank from the foxglove and yarrow before you
     flew to me
Your heart stutters under my palm
      Throbbing fast and full of sweetness

Tell me
     Do you understand how delightful you are?
Come
Drink the sugar water from my garden
The cottage is always a little sunnier with you around.

That first night, I pulled out all the pulp of my swollen, pumpkin heart and showed it to you.
All full and wet and messy
You cupped in your hands the filling from your own heart
Much the same as mine

And we shared a likeness
Two souls born real and rich
Out of garden patch dirt
Full of gourds and crickets

I trusted your blossoms and your stems and your weeds
But you stowed it all away as suddenly as you came
And I'm still standing here
With all my stringy
Sopping soul
Exposed.