...in a mentality of redoing

she lifted the edge of the road like a canvas runner    and started walking the rain drums the dust back down sets a pace to the war still ringing in her ears above, the clouds crowd against the ceiling now, even now    with the dead sun bleeding light behind the mountains bruises from desperate hands smudged along her arms    the road groaning in her fists as it’s dragged along

she has no patience left, only the will to outlast the rain drums the sparks out    and the grit against the ground

then start the jokes even if the stereotypes held any truth     which they don’t but you see what you want to see     why would you question TV or society     you don’t need to that is still a generalization there are always exceptions     I guess individual is a word without weight     if it was I’d throw it at your head why should it matter if this person is a mathematical genius     or this one can pull the soul out of piano but is not so good with history facts     or fumbled through language arts     or was kind of average at everything but was just good why does that earn your derision? you, who can’t even finish a sentence or has a single friend that wouldn’t interrupt you but you aren’t racist because you married a “halfrican”     oh, he may as well be white you say okay and you aren’t racist either you discriminate against everyone     you hate all people there’s another word for that by the way we don’t start off equal     so the damage your words do isn’t equally spread it doesn’t bother you so it shouldn’t bother anyone else     a stellar line of reason and logic, not to mention empathy

and by the way maybe you could try being original     instead of shooting targets already riddled with bullet holes maybe there are endless subjects in the world     yet you’ve picked race again and again

they often say a woman’s body is a marvel of curves but his body is all sweep and swell and arc to me

some curves spring up with tension some curves reveal themselves in the failed vigil of sleep his eyelashes whisper up in a delicate circumference

angry words are burning on my tongue

but I will not open my mouth

angry words are knocking against my teeth

but I will not open my mouth

I swallow the anger, still growling down my throat

it does not die in the acid of my stomach

it does not drown the deeper I push it

my blood is feverish, percolating

my thoughts have spun too long frustrated

He threw his arms about the moment so fast

it looked like rescue

The heart is built of four chambers

   (what lives in them?)

Inevitability rushes through my veins

You've pressed your lips to my fevered selfishness

I will sigh against your skin

   score your peace with my fingers

I burned myself down

to reach the bone, the gristle;

to find a sparer person before the rage

stopped my heart a final time.

  When does bitterness crack, emerge as nostalgia -

or time mute obsession?

The smiles have been tear-starched off my cheeks.

Didn’t they make the sea to throw

I have never heard the sound of your steps 

but the carpet misses your tread.

The corners are emptied of your twilight roaming,

the windows no longer echo your face.

I have found dust that I never knew you swept away

and hurts you soothed before I voiced them.

A little light winks across the room but it's not the reflection of your eyes.

What were you thinking, leaving me to wait at the edgeside -

what were you thinking

I’m lying in the grass trying to discern the constellations

They say Orion and Caelum and Ursa Minor are other worlds and

     I’ve heard a few alternative universe theories

     I’ve toyed within my thoughts with time machines

and there’s no such thing as a silent night but as my eyes

fail to find the edge of the sky

as each blue deepens into another blue deepens

darkens the harder you peer into it

The rise and fall…

of my chest… is replacing the trail of thoughts and

I can only keep staring…

a blue pencil doesn't work on regrets

and lining up thoughts is like lining up cats

sentiments are tumbling down the ladder of your throat

the words are laid out on a burning table

you've erased the line but it's still etched in the paper's skin

in rapacity, I have been trawling diaries and obituaries and watching you when you think you’re alone

in rapacity, I have dipped my fingers into almost everything and trespassed onto almost every property,

     I have ducked beneath the bright tapes and over the chalklines

in rapacity, I have snuck into the concert, the backdoor of the oldest bookstore, I have loitered in the hallways by all the doorframes:

     you might walk through

I weaved through State Street’s thin morning crowd

canvas bag handles looped over each forearm

while buskers coaxed coins from the corners

into the gaping velvet mouths of open instrument cases

with whining flutes and entreating guitars and woeful violins

but my hand didn’t reach for my wallet until I heard

a rapacious saxophone gutting the sunlight

making the bright fragments

pulse

and tumble

across the sidewalk

dodging under the rubbery tread of shoes and sandals

As I tugged a dollar from the leather folds Washington fixed me with a stern eye

four years having nothing to love  but your voice

I’ve pushed two mattresses

to the floor, their sides touching

while we sleep; ours not

  by day five my lips are brushing