I was driving home last eve
She said,"Ma! Look! Tee hee! They
love
each other!"
To the left of the single lane,
in the tall golden hay,
sat a couple
She sat with her back to him,
between his legs
He, held her in his arms
as the sun sliced the sky
I stopped,
right on the road
Honey suckle blowing in the late breeze
I watched them,
We watched them
for just a bit
They loved each other

And all I wanted
was to be the honeysuckle

My great
My great absent
lead, find me on my own
lip kissing ma-diaspora
below

Underneath
her grass
face first burrow
back before the living
Earth

Know well the worst of myself
Your words are worthless

Know well the worst
of the common dark spell

Cast
for hand
cast for company
in tracing pages, ancient,
stained

What is maintenance? My life has to be cold,
planned, full of calculation. Otherwise, what?
Otherwise, I'll be old at thirty-five, bold, but too close

to a tragic slip, toes in the grass by open graves,
when peers gather, grow on pavement past the gates.
My life has to be cold, planned, full of calculation.

Otherwise, the most vital, underlying systems
yell in warning lights, compromised. You may
not think it problematic, but I can't interpret
signs of my demise already six feet down,

now can I? That's why I (we): clean, sort,
scrub, update outdated thoughts, as if
otherwise, I (we) cut the years I'll (we'll)
survive.

Open my chest for me, you,
lovely human you. Your
scent rises through the rain.
Could I live the way you live,
I would. But I can't, and I know that.
So let me react to your input,

open my chest for me
open my chest for me

open my chest for me
open me