It stood, sweating

pages of ash.
_________
Stretched days stare

from stone and grass.
I run into their light, regretting everything.
_________
My fingers hook and unhook.

Listening to voices

hover up the wall and long bottles of flame explode.
The track lies

behind, shadows sleep through.

Turn it all upside down.
_________
You were young then
floated on water
and might have come with me to the sunken creek.
Now I bend

reflection flattens me

apart.
Now everyone has fire

they sit still.
_________
Embers jump from my mouth,

weeks collapsing.
The sky flies on.
_________
I’ve cut the evening
	  my face locked

	  one eye at a time.
_________
The warm dimensions of mist

move with me;

storming breaks ahead

and I blink forward, off the plain.
Do you have any idea
_________
Over itself the river’s drag

firm. Ascent
from paper soft with stench & thwack

of current hurtling.
_________
If a thin touch

spells out

down river
already I’ve passed you

(the banks brave, first star)

raising myself in time.
_________
My last face was streaked

with open water, buds caught in its silver

streams like mouths.
_________
Swamp bedding.
From its pattern

I separate

each blade clear—

no myth, I wade clueless—

the polis of moss in my ears.

Slowly twisting trees

crash to cinders.
_________
Your spine like smoke.
_________
The whole year is stripes

and grids of appetite;
wash away the surface—

eat it through.
_________
Into the apartments of sand

I entered flat under the door.
_________
Night tightens its grip.

Like an old moon
I rust in the pool
boiling

skinless and mineral blue.