July 28, 2019

• cupped in twilight

  

   

  i see you vaguely cupped in twilight
  maybe sitting by a window
  or maybe outside in the yard
  fanning away mosquitoes

  the peaches are stunted this year

  the word space feels empty
  but sometimes it's a place being filled

  there are puddles and puddles of silence
  in the lake lying languid
  and the sunlight festers
  on black dirt and sumac roots.

  none of this is necessarily true.

  but with only a few
  days left
  i feel driven
  to write a poem
  even this shitty one about nothing
  like a burlap sack under a walnut tree
  that has no walnuts

  all day
  i have sat rocking time
  back and forth
  the shell of my life cracked into two distinct
  moments, back and forth.
  back and forth.

  that's not entirely true either.

  i had a companion, eleven years old.

  standing on the porch
  we saw a butterfly stumble
  with torn wings
  whose dull sparkles
  forgot to shine.

  all of my years in this blog
  became packed into one tiny knot.

  death is a second cousin dining
  with my ex-lover's father,
  semper fidelis.
  a spider webs the corner of the room;
  his heart staggers against his ribs.

  a nymph goddess beckons
  from a sung dynasty painting
  porcelain fingers
  streaming black hair

  in the hollow palm of midnight
  she answers with a lullaby
  
  last night the moon was half empty
  neither growing nor shrinking.
  it crept out of my window

  into the rest of darkness

  • 5:42 am
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