you play with the serious words

you play with the serious words,
and with sand castles and candelabras,
Twisting the chandelier in repressed rage
and shaking the walls.

You dance, and the words you throw slip their meanings and lodge right...here.

Sanctimonious, you said, and irreverent.
And I listened...and heard of nothing but sea gulls and burning tar.

Seagulls and Washbasins. Nectarines and Floor wax.

I lost it all to the sounds.

The trainwreck of syllables won me completely
and I'll take the consequences
of the sounds of the serious words at your heels.

you taste like a bachelor apartment, i say
one with smoke-stained yellow walls
in a big city i want to travel to

these are not secrets, these
are sticks of dynamite and i've got
one hand on the light, ready to
run

you play with the serious words the
way a cat plays with a living meal. will
you leave the vestiges of me on my
mother's doorstep, bits of my hair
still clinging to your mouth?

i went to a thrift store today, i say. my
heart is still on your bed, bleeding
out. staining the mattress blue. "i found
shoes, but they didn't fit."

"no?"

"no. almost.
"it was really close."