The Vault
despair & I are inventing a word
world by world
marked by a long lifeline & a canyon of darkness what I want to uncover & bury at once
today
we woke after a simple & resonant night
slowly
we are saying things
leave a toothbrush see me on your bad days too
the winter before her
I stayed home smoked & toasted the night
the stars must be lonely
the word is
somewhere in summer fireflies shaken to life in a jar
* * * * *
The Vault
The nightmare touched its forehead to my lips.
::
Then a year where I wouldn’t let him enter –
not this book or the book of the dead.
::
Four plates set at the table.
::
The noose in my chest
tenses at we.
::
Half the ashes in a Ziploc in the dresser.
Half the ashes in the crypt.
::
The nightmare touched its forehead to my lips.
* * * * *
The Vault
Dear lord,
I pronounce your name & believe
I don’t believe.
Why’d you kill my father
through 17 years,
then let him kill himself?
::
A system of migratory birds
in a bamboo forest.
I can hear them
though they’re hidden.
I can hear them
like closing all of my eyes.
* * * * *
The Vault
the beer in my jacket is warm & amounts to comfort
as I welcome the winter of my 26th year
& the world as it must goes still
the days slip by in a slime of grief
the way in Amsterdam
three days into a bender
I sat like two wolves transparent in hunger
I don’t want another drink
the quartz breeze in my coat as I lifted my collar
I want the past like a harvest again