terminal couple

hair

black as a wine cellar

holds me motionless

all day;

 

as a doddering sun

with melted ear

and melted eye can still

debride lips

of a kiss and scrape

like a dermatologist.

 

i am swindled

once more

of your heroin

though i keep the plunger down

like the taproot of a fir tree.

 

i am grounded like a moa

though the feathers in this head

are my spirit’s imprisoned fingers

squeezing through burlap.

 

somewhere in this bravery is the iron grip to

weigh against eggshell.

somewhere, the bravery to wipe the silent bottoms

of your shoes.

somewhere are the wild cancers

that will burn us up in one night.


 

after gallows

in the end

i won’t know

how deep are the graves

in the cemetery

or why

they grin at all –

why winter gives

birth to an ice age

and picks its chipped

teeth.

 

there is a value

in warm rain

nourishing a river:

sound lightly dripping;

sound of an axe raised through misty breath;

sound of an exhausted fox;

sound of a snake pit;

sound of that sad scandinavia.

 

i say, in an english voice,

that little stem on your beret

is a twisted chimney not

letting out the smoke:

 

i say this as memory

seeps through walls

muttering

all over the floor.

i work at tying this sack

of human reasoning

tight as

a moneybag

fills a hole in the ground:

as blood does

a split lip.

 

in the end,

a retrovirus mutates,

becomes

violated

by something smaller.

 

water is everywhere -

that knuckles sing like braille

on drowning fists

cannot be for lack of breath and,

though a sperm cell always carries

a red rose,

in the end,

an invasive shower

washes it all away.