i climb
rounded smoke. i hang,
hung thru lanky light
planked past
my window.
i go
reckless and
crooked catching my angular throw
of form against this life, distracted
by almost nothing.
my body speaks me, to me
in subtle pains
and larger terrors.
act re-acts in
response to engine sounds on asphalt;
"our creation," so somehow mine.
i'd not choose any of it - it's not
mine to choose. how then, can i
be so sure? so sure and so
broken - thrown in
splashes against need for
subtlety, for
awe of a tree's patience with
thirst and for questions
about dream's stored
and restored and passed down -
kept in an attic box
beside armchair ghosts
that still remember comfort.

a small parcel
amongst so much baggage
shouldered careless
amidst too much sadness.
all the moments crash before and after
a time when there never was and never
will again be ... meanwhile,

i'm rising
to honor a deeper remorse or
perhaps only bending
great loss to fit the gaps where
promise's weave weakens and pulls apart.
god sleeps
in the first small
agony and wakes,
for the last.

at loss

what i lack ~
perhaps the lexicon to explain
action or paralysis;
both warp my solitude.

watching a phonograph record
in the white sun
melting - it was such a beautiful song but too,
something so dogggedly beautiful in its wilting -
losing form gaining secrecy and its song
will not be stollen - only absorbed by heat.

what i lack ~
perhaps manifest in my need for words that aren't
just vague longings still
indiscrete in their entirety.
i have always been blind- how could i
explain the absence of light to
anyone - least of all myself?
i lack counterpoint, so i am silent;
palpably stranded on one side of a comparison
i cannot make, yet
such a thorough fusion to its presence.
i am inextricably bound to its absence made
tactile in my ignorance aching
like a hollow tooth.

what i lack ~
even as i cannot grasp what
"it" is, i am of it
as negative space.
i am antonym.