you wander
through my body
like a child
with a pack
of matches

a zig zag road
******* in knots

switchbacks
dead ends

a long straight
into the distance

one foot
then another.

It begins with a whisper,
not of air,
but of policy,
spinning.

The wall is old.
Painted over promises,
layered thick with
“later,”
“not yet,”
“it’s complicated.”

The drill hums, a mandate,
a motion passed in tired rooms,
a push into what resists
and always has.

Plaster flakes like paper ballots.
Behind it:
wires crossed,
beams bowed from holding too much weight
for too long.

This isn’t demolition.
It’s inquiry.
An attempt to find
what’s been hidden in drywall sermons
and insulation thick with slogans.

The silence after isn’t peace,
it’s waiting.
A breath before someone asks:
Who gave permission to open this up?

And someone else answers:
No one.
We just did.

Strange thought before a surgery:
we're all guests signed in to visit  

at a nursing home for the gods -
we make our obeisance and tell them

of our doings and goings,
but they're feeble-minded, rheumy,

ensconced in cloudy rockers,
not watching or listening, perhaps

they reminisce on discarded cosmos;
we're forgotten, or, worse,

acknowledged but irrelevant -
either way they'll share no wise.

I feel only silence without and within
as I lie down on the paper bed -

casual as ice, the doctor carves
away the excess swim from my *****,

by needle, knife, and fire -  
his third on a humdrum Friday.

I gaze through ache at pock-faced ceiling -
it gazes back with dead fluorescence.

I sneak a look at a lustrous dwarf star
that caught me in its shining net

like an uncommonly nonchalant fish.
I limp to the car, up the stairs,

befriend the bottles of null,
the pocketless black: the new me.

In the stillness of early morning,
A silent call echoes in the heart of duty.
Footsteps tread softly on dewy paths,
A promise of sacrifice in every breath.
Memories of home and dreams deferred,
Whispered in winds that carry hope and sorrow.
The uniform hides a story of courage,
A quiet vow to protect the light of freedom.
Each heartbeat is a testament to bravery,
A journey that begins with a single, resolute step.
In the calm before the storm, the call remains,
Steady and unwavering, like a distant drum.

there are nights when my
knees write treaties on the floor —
of my surrender

Bleed your heart for paint.
Dip your pen into your veins,
Wring the refrain into the fine mesh colander,
boil your water
And feed it to your daughter.

I used to be a *******.
Now I’m just dumbfounded.