Let go of the troubles

Little gods of the girl

A million line memory

And in front there are more

 

She’s paid them her keep

And it leaves them at bay

For maybe a few hours

When nothingness is peace

 

She floats in a bathtub

And makes wishes on change

To be something so hard

The troubles run away

All dried out

Hanging by a thread

I know this old song

I’ll dance in your stead

 

Bag of bones

Heart of steel

Remember the steps

The tap, tap of unreal

I’m barely surviving

This drive-by love

So delicate, only

When I’m not enough

A peach of the pretties

All covered in lonlies

A want-to-be victim

Just lie down in the black

Some days the misty memory of you rises to meet me

Unrequested and unwanted,  like too-humid air

Delicate blooms of affection spring open

And we have a nearness, although we are far

I inhale the sense of something old on wet wind

The kind saturated with one thousand familiars

I am the stillness in this swamp of loss

Even the heron’s clock-motions outrun my own

I am beauty in disguise

Look for lovely inside

Turn quick and catch

Constellation in motion

Possibilities ignite

Like a rebel star

Not reflecting

Another’s glow

Turn your useless corner

Pack your hemlock just in case

Line your pockets with worn stories

Drop those breadcrumbs as you pace

 

Open the door and face the Girl

A fiercesome tonic of tylonol and coke

She can no longer see her body

The severed branches of an oak

 

You’ve always loved this floating freak

Before you saw her, your griefs conversed

Insides sliced in bloody sections

Wombs the Fates long ago reversed