Our nights of dreaming about
credit counselors and
rugby
were being clawed apart by
Arizona.
Hooping my feet on the streets, I smoke a
cigarette
and kneel by the
gutters, watching a
bicycle baptized in
rust.
Sometimes I
pray I drown in the rain --
especially with a
phone in my hand, smiling
and softening the
bricks of my house.
But you push and push, persuading me
that my
heart was wrapped in a blanket.
The
dinners we won't have
are dreamed by your cups of
applesauce, the
chorus
you sing along to when you have me
on hold.
But I was gone -- the dark
corner,
Tuesday's grandchild, heavy as a
hyacinth.
I ran home and counted the
nails in front of the gray
cathedral mailbox, lighting up the
skin you've uncovered.
The petals on the
gerbera daisies hang bloated
in the old compost, swallowing the light.