there’s no leaves but
the leaves are waving at me
as though a greeting held
motion; soon to waver.

juxtapose a grainy shadow,
hide inside a clasp of hands,
the vision of a body what is
a body portrayed outward but
within a repose of words
stolen by frightened birds and
crumbs expelled from childlike

hands, body, what is a body but hands
hungered beaks handle,

bird spirituals a sated breath
the baby cataclysmic
the baited half-breath of
the births half-death. searching
for soul after waking on dry land or
on that island
i rip a bit off of me and toss it
to skip stones of pith.

this placement sings of babylon,
of the isolation held between the
waking & sober waiting. but
nothing but telephone poles
to tuck pencil-like
a reminder of wishes
plunging my ears and what were heard
has been overlooked
before all that is said
is

swept
away….

……..in flurries of pins,
a common recrimination
to choke feathers ’til
I sleep storms stilled
still kept and yet still.
the wings undone, re-read
so still,
between the palm
& the sex: that breath holds still;
a sex of plurals
and synonyms imbibe salty
solutions into
the atrophy of our veins

we’ve spoke, now, possibly at
the possibilities of the skin,
and its sadness.
when given, it is gone
& quietly it returns: embarrassed;
A love that falls
reflects the floodlights off
tinsel likerememberchristmas, kid,
flashes of past
curl into our scattering palms.

we may have collided the wide-eyed
stupor vision of memory, but
eyeless we can read the space
of a lifeline without touching,

almost knowing,
almost all-knowing.

years seem to sweep
knitted impressions that
I circumambulated ’round warm senses
in nerves of know
solemnly here;

uneasily acquired
lot and / or lost another, found,
in hope: basking in hope,
until
found, hopeless, circular stanza
read as failure failing,
center fuse lit & clashing
a clasping

quick and subtle a
bookend bed but sleepless
lids intent to meet eachother
a chaste kiss
so certainly maddening under these circumstances.
but without this imagined
strength
what will hold its own?

if the pull is suspended &
the soul is betrayed
the stanza is a voice
& a life, and a life?
my life, a jagged stack
of suitcases,
crave a breath to catch
my skin, wisps of hair to
snag and flutter books’ pages

tickles this idea
a substance memory; could
you breath too much today?