try to avoid weather and tainted air, approach a street corner, you move across a diagonal, on feet in shoes not wheels, and meet me, storefronts swap in memory, i see neon pink and feather boas, you a scarf and round shades and slowing down, my feet’s pace doesn’t know how to stop with the lights, or you
the ghosts come out in the summer because that’s
when the sheets come off
are you still breathing?
those full of love
willingly, without
a thought
let the traffic
take me
away
another realm
they
are too incredible
to be taken so swiftly
from this world
during the playback of sounds his body stands present, still, eyes to the easel laid flat, still, as still as a screaming human can stand while trembling tight. pines grow from his center lungs, the canyon space where silence resides, tender in fear of caving, church bells shatter and clang over our syllables.
two steps back
and forth and back nesting
in a settled cave–there is no light
to give shadow to this slender
figure that sinks
into drifting air a child
voice hidden in walls
of lung
hums s s s s s s s s s s s s s s in a cell in a cell a cell cells in a cave hum hums in caves in caves in a cave in a hums s s s s s s s s s s s s s s
train horn echoes an ocean from the east side of town.
it breaks through the dry, stagnant air, bitter and hungry
but it doesn’t stop. with each move
the battered horn is further away but still screams
in poignant moments
as the clock strikes
rises from the ground, quiet and meditative, unsure of its footing, slippery on rubber soles, open at the bottom from the ocean’s trembling heart years ago now, lives ago
grey and grey and grey in
chaotic sitting time and time and
time passes backwards
for a moment my own
teenage ghost standing
silent knowing
a different realm blinks
too quickly to ask him
to recite a memory–
to him this will be more raw,
real, unspoiled
by concrete walls and a repetitive
mind
