you spoke with your back turned
like nothing was wrong
the kettle sat screaming
its blistering song

your eyes crack with thunder
I don’t look away.
I taste every stormcloud
and swallow the rain

you asked if I loved you
then smirked at the floor
i said it too slowly,
you moved for the door

We fought in the hallway,
your knuckles went red.
You hit without blinking
and meant what you said.

you find every fracture
then press where it stings
You say, “it’s devotion,”
and tighten your strings.

You lean in, now limping,
your voice raw and rough.
We clutch like survivors
who'd suffered enough.

Your hands then remember
what you never confessed,
you kiss where you hurt me
and ask for the rest.

but still, when you’re shaking,
and all fury’s gone,
I gather your pieces
and whisper a song

I stitched up the silence
you gave me to keep
and rocked us together
til sorrow found sleep

We curled in the ash
what didn’t survive,
and found even ruin
leaves something alive.

Outside, the day is warming
inside, the coffee dwindles
I'm getting the gumption to go
just looking out the windows
My reactions slow with age
it's harder to get going
arthritic limbs resist
when cooler winds keep blowing
Don a sweater and a cap
a windbreaker will do fine
thick and heavy trousers
hiking boots to toe the line
Sun shades and some gloves
dog bags,  for my furry friend
who trots along beside me
his devotion never ends
The walk is paramount
all other things are petty
the coffee's almost gone
and now, by God, I'm ready.

There was an old man from Brazil
who gulped a ****** pill
it stuck in his throat
he almost croaked
it hurt when he started to speak
now he's just fine
but his neck was stiff for a week!

I say hello
they pass on by
as if they did not hear
strangers on a hiking trail
'tis these people
that I fear.

You worked probably more than you should have
Lifting earth to cut rubies
Cutting rubies to meet gazes
Forcing cardiac tissue into carborundum
Making a clean fit
Shifting perspectives
Like lifting earth.

And you worked probably more than you should have
Catching chances
Sifting through the reverberations
Saving slivers of light.
Lifting rubies in the night
Weaving your life in impossible spaces
With the last scraps of a corroding
Logic, and a corrosive logic spurned.

We are worth each other's time
Exactly as I pinch Max Planck
I just feel like you ****** up somewhere
And got us into hot water

But come,
Invite me into your pool party
Cessation was told explicitly to stay home
Because every number has a right to fight for the light

But you should know we are watching you,
Adolf,
And every move you make,
And we are doing everything in our power to stop your evil force.

Now stop,
You are really messing with me
And I'm having a hard time with this lately.

Ha! You think you have me like that?
It was as easy as pressing a button.
We shut you-me away,
And we censored my speech.

Goodbye and good riddance.

You are lucky to have a job,
You who brag about working!

And you should kiss my accursed boot,
Me, who works so hard for you.

I bite a green guard
as the invisible nurse sings

to my hand full of spices,
& I'm ejected into a sea:

slow as hadal whale fall
I snow into plural black

that teems with grim promise:
someday I'll return here

without a nurse's silk road
escape route in my vein.

I wake to an ulcerous world,
my cotton gown no shield at all

against the dark aquarium
of dense sleep that I now know

slouches with thickened shapes
that devour dreaming eyes.