downstares

in the wild we
occupy windows and grasp
for hollow faces in the
crowd to
fill with our own
recognizable smiles

warriors in soft chairs
dangers warped by
relocated dreams and
mania sets
in
like a stable home in the
summer rain

melancholy lip service
blurring the
articulation from my
financial surrender and
maybe there were orchids in
the verdant hollows where
avenues for life gave purchase and
thrived untended still
thrilled
by studies in anger and morality
under dark lenses and from
odd angles

perspective's lumbering gait through
memory's mezzanines
anchoring language against the
breathless tenor of nature

weapons to fence away
this failure

*

pictures of the city melt into
these wanders

she stands young and thin and
wears a red bow cliche that still
emerges preternaturally from
hair so dark thick and primordial it is
as one umber appendage standing
solid in
the humidity
underneath
here as we
hopscotch universes or
train stops nonchalant and
swaying like hypnotized dancers

so utterly uniform and meaningless to me that i
will probably always
remember her