Sassoonery

death fluttered in the hollows of

my cheeks, dust collected in my gums

while tiny wings went on a futile hunt

for light. The fissures in my heart started

months before the end, in that darkness

where language escaped me and silence

bred more chaos. When finally left

alone (one act of mercy), every lightbulb

shattered. I’m still picking wings and glass

out of my teeth all these years later and

I resent that I can’t seem to erase all traces

of trauma, that I once mistook an emerging sunrise

ascending and descending this great staircase,

our hands learning the chipped concrete on

both sides. If we get out of here, we’ll eat oysters.

We’ll make love again, soft and seasonless.

Unlikely a pearl will come from this—

here we become an emergency,

starving something else in ourselves because

that’s what we think it means to be human.

The harps on the outside sound unpracticed

and out of tune, blaring like alarms

suddenly fluorescent in this well worn darkness.

Still, anything might save us—some spare

angel, a decent story that doesn’t end

in sacrifice, three bars of cell phone service.

It doesn’t matter now that we shouldn’t have

come here. In our desperation, we mistake

signs for other signs. On the other side

of every handleless door is heaven.

when we closed our eyes

in the void between solace and survival

brightly vivid and scarred

bruised with shadows

yet there, constant

like your fingertips

that kissed crescent marks

on my wrists

as we lay quiet and invisible

whispering stardust promises

to be kept in every territory where

like the sugary something we ate

falling on his shin, my tongue, his toes

landing in his hair

car lights—fireflies out the window

laughing , fingers touching—

wind drew diamonds from the blur past

Goodbye, in the midst of it all

on the other side of the sky

he gave life twice—

once, he knows

but this he doesn’t

he let me go from the grief of his heart

as it slows—descending

it’s most difficult turn making a drumbeat

towards dark

Intermittent and pushy

The first gust stealing my breath

Still I reached for you as the sun’s rays

Stretch toward clouds

In the end touching only wispy void

Between blue and gray

Yet I mourn your absence like stardust aches for the moon

Fiercely in bright pulsing fits

In the misty silence at dawn

Of birds, feathering thick with dusk,

A flood of beaks shadowing the gated

Square, a sudden whoosh of wings like a downpour,

Swallowing all the names and tears inside me.

I make walls from husk of breath and blurred

Sky of memory and wait for the water to rise—

of birdsong

echoing under a cerulean sky

because memory is fleeting

the joy of a choir in summer’s vast embrace

will be replaced by

nature’s frantic morse code

the whining of the wind

the turbulent thwack of tree limbs

against the wooden barn

your mother calling you home

run to her with wild abandon

with thankful prayers sent up to an out-of-focus sky

through salty tears for the false safety of home

and the lost symphony of something so simple

as the coming of an afternoon storm

and a mother’s embrace

of the derecho

stretches across the summer sky

threatening and massive and

frighteningly beautiful

i lift my eyes in awe

smell the air juicy with humidity

and precipitation that

suddenly sizzles on the pavement

the drag and shove of wind

my arms stretched out

like a weather vane

For suck and shudder of waves,

Cradled in the crepuscular void?

Vast, deep fields abundant in

Disembodied whispers of

The desperate nightingale

Choked by a bruised gloaming

Chaotic plans we made

And sacrificed to the shadows

Trying to recall the melody of a calming breeze

Across absurd poppy fields sown with brass

Oppressive between lonely heartsong

And a solitary candle

in the space between now

and forever

i fall into bed

like dust

i have already lived this day

but it has come again

because the days do as they please

and I will never understand

how time can be slow like a bruise

and faster than the fall

how pain beats like an eternal pulse

and laughter rots like petals

and nothing ever stays

but everything lingers

time is running out

is overflowing

is everywhere

i can’t catch it

Steady, immovable, mute

Alone in my singular makeup

But now December comes and you’ve brought the band

My temple shows it’s settling

Small volcanoes of dust erupt around my toes

I’m too exhausted to even raise a fist

My skin betrays me

A cracked façade

It dimples purple and shrinks under your fingertips

My voice exposes what’s left of my foundation

Sarcasm, agony, something else entirely

Such is life

My eyes leak truth

Drip what my bones want from you

A relenting peace

No more rumble

The chance to move wide open again

Be still my heart

Bombs unexploded or still unsent

Shrapnel waiting to find a mark

Concentrated chemicals not reaching for fresh flesh

Blood still in the veins

Yet to find its way to the lung,

The mouth, the nose, the ground

Poised pens yet to ignite the revolution

Minds free of worry about

Ways to survive

The serene night air

Blanketing the dreamers

Before the waking and the dawn prayer

Potential energy all

Like motionless feet

Hidden wings

revealing her porcelain face

subtly ablaze in the infinite

her shoulders draped with constellation

her smile a luminous invitation

to hold my soul

know myself as chosen

i watched as she

rouged her cheeks with stardust

lined her eyes with

night black

a celestial conspirator