Umbilical

i have no excuse
lying on my back,
an ache behind each eye,
sand coating my throat.

i have no excuse
for this recurring dream
in which i am covered
gently
by the dirt,
making the mistake

of opening my mouth.

i remember you tried
to burn your prints away
but the groves, the loops
healed back, revealing
there's no such thing
as starting over

just again,
and a third time,
as if this were practice,
as if life were practice.

why not be here now
before we cough up
the mud of the past?

if we go back

long before there were knives, there were teeth
to shred through flesh and crunch through bone

if we go back to "olden times,"
you have to put your weapons away

use what god gave you to impress survive

there is no cutting room floor
everything goes live

part with the club by the entrance
when you are done using it for the day

scrape the mud from your feet

await a return
to the same pattern of violence

Your Own Medicine

sertraline
dangling
like an ornament
on the uvula--
to swallow
one's pride
is like hiding
evidence
to a crime

The Drawbridge

On either side of a memory,
I wait
until the drawbridge closes
and the gap is filled--
without pleasantries,
without remorse,
just a pure, seamless destination
in front and behind--
from one town to the next,
and we can travel freely.
Until that bridge
serves its purpose,
I'll wait.
Between black and white,
between life and death,
I'll wait.

Pretending

the light isn't coming back on--

too much trust for something

with invisible wires.

too much honesty for something

that pretends 

to be the sun.

I don't think I'm brave.

before your eyes knew me,

you thought I was--

skating into each tiny dream

on ice as black as fear...

when the light burnt out

I went to bed and

never got up

because it never came back.

a slight glimmer came, once,

a trick from my window--

or from my eye.

optic nerves, invisible wires tied so gently,

mapped by God and science...

too much trust for something

that is not guaranteed.

before your eyes knew me,

I philosophized.

I evangelized.

but then the ice cracked beneath my feet,

and I plunged

with you above me, 

so far away,

light-years away