The afternoon plays with promises

stung lonelinesses straddling each other

cooking

t i m   e

sipping grain from yesterday’s wallpaper
& they say kindness is corrugated

& they say blue horses babble like consonants

& they say palm is the doorknob of heart

                                   (dazed, half-gentle)

patches of lover & mountain

styrofoam moons

rainbow recollection

rioting

against

hours

seeking

silo

shared

strangeness  — 
& if 
( & i     f  )
i close these eyes, i can hear

dawn’s dinner bell

sun letting the dreamers back in

sun siphoning loss from mothers

grief’s      scenery

overbaked   stars

petrified     palaces

ears guzzling instruments

mouths           juniper breath 
& there

& there

             are two dusks 
the  dusk   l o s s       has made 
the  dusk     l o v e   has made 
& one sun

& one sun  
(scuffed

              hickory) 
look    — 
cotton  mountains    comfort      eyes

twinned mouths     grow wet

in the    gloaming

nurse     bleating      foothills                                                .

                                        bandaged    b lu e                    .

                                        (like                            this   .             )

                                                   this

                                                              like