far down the river's molten smile

tonight you finally showed me green
and i was happy. i promise to remember

this emerald whenever i'm feeling
old and fat, unlovable. i met a man

from africa and he told me what
would happen with you if you got your wishes.

then you confirmed by pulling my skirt
away, looking down. said don't do that again.


*




it's funny how i know and don't know you.
do you tell me all your secrets? don't do that.
well, do that. and that. yes, it's like
we never grew up in different neighborhoods
different childhoods. now the world is ending
just as much as then. bright blossoms
in the scarless cloud. is this much togetherness
healthy? make sure to take your nights out
because i will make you old before your time.

hush and i'll tell you a secret. it's my last one.
over here, a fish. over here a slightly dmamged
rear view mirror. and here, the bottom drawer
of our future. lift the suit i picked to be
burnt in. why a suit? because i'm dead and i clean
up nicely. one day i'll be reaching for the soap
and fall in the tub. that's the day
when you find me as i am rather than how you wish
to see me.

outside my window there are so many tales to be told.

but i feel it, the crack widens
and sparks into the dark sky
like immolated wishes on a back draft.

i find i need to write to someone.
this tree will need eyes for a sound to occur.

dear scar,
sometimes i feel your emptiness
wash over me, the copy machine
color of never was. you keep going

back to your old school, the room
with blank mattel vistas and blue blanket.
your dark hair, skinny ass, o there
were no pimples but whatever.

i've felt too often that it's me
you should have loved. but that's
not what i meant when i said have a good life.
you turned me down wholly, and i can dig that.

once i had love all gassy and free
casting for fish after fish with nary a bite.
they don't like those misty worms.

i finally found i was doing it all wrong.
selling myself and you were perhaps
the only one ever really recognised it.
it's looking in the mirror and calling
it bluff. it's catching a glimpse of aquanet
ravens in the chrome bumper and triplet stroller

mounting bracket. of course i dn't know you.
that is the mythos of words. the way you
covered your mouth when you laughed, well,

giggled might better describe it. i credit
the visit to the effeciency with a bag o green
with your most absolute downfall
though it wouldn't come for many years yet.

then you were gone. and your place stands
this man who is not the vagabond. tied to pasts
with every stroke of your girls' head.
do you remember how to be kind now?


there was something cruel in her
that satisfied your need to crawl
into a river with a bent royal crown.