Don’t forget to call 811

before you bury your divorce.

It takes five minutes –

unlike the four hours

you stood

to kiss her in front of Elvis.

I still remember that day:

We fluttered to a city

known for quick things,

our compliance short strings.

Panhandlers heckled us for currency –

they accepted sweat or time.

It was all the same to us.

The boulevard of mud

lined with vomit and crud,

should’ve been reason enough

for us to depart.

Midday weddings are overrated –

why parade like a Parotia

in proper places?

A church and a saloon

with thirty plastic rose bouquets

are the same

when pink light hits the frame.

We thought truth was buried in the dark

and garish lights – our sun and altar

There I swayed like a half-starved sailor

calling you my love and savior.

I swear we were the golden ones

in that line of lovestruck chumps.

I wallow in domesticity

and bake cakes

to feed simplicity.

I let them burn – they taste better

Egg shells mixed with walnuts

The frosting curdled,

granular and lackluster.

The oven becomes a temporary sanctuary

Scorched fingers – disturb dormancy.

Don’t mind the blackened crumbs –

just ash

to fill the urn.

Should I decorate with berries or with stones?

Sweet glass

only spits blood

from untold cuts.

My knife will slice a piece

I’ll never eat

and there it will rest – food of flies.

This piece you were not meant to swallow

will mold and rot

like my cadaver.

Be king for the day.

They’ll bow their heads

and pray.

This too ends.

The streets lined with kingmakers,

sorrowed-filled partakers.

The carriage that hauls you

falls like a failed coup.

Blind and deaf you seem,

but know love’s pity hold

shuts off a spite controlled.

Your scream is cut by a seam.

At a distance, a cardinal sings

its red feathers covered with the soot

of this cigarette night,

Kentucky back roads 

I’d wished to be my home.

On the gravel next to

trees filled with the smoke of ghosts

My car stands silent and my feet wobble.

My stomach burns;

My plucked throat.

Soon tears blind

this flightless scapegoat.

The tobacco-winds target me

and I taste tar,

sticky blackness of a borrowed tongue.

I’ve suffocated,

ignited and baited,

like coal left

damp and cold after campfires.

Y’all don’t know

I was a goat destined to be a bird.

Y’all won’t know

I’ll be a cardinal even while exiled.

I remember how honeysuckle

grew behind swings

we once took turns reaching the tip

where sun and metal greet.

A break from who we were,

your hands pressed against my back,

and we ached for the unknown.

The gravel-waves,

our metal respite and pretend-home,

now sail through time alone.

The honeysuckle is a specter

that tastes cold

like a stone.

I see your face in rays of gold

and hear your voice as nectar.

What was your prized possession?

The ring of twig and pistil

I forged in March

or the bugbox?

Ladybugs

imprisoned yet loved.

And as you lay lost on cotton waves,

I become a ladybug

and as my wings caress your cheek,

fingers travel lightly

above bruised lips.

Your breath halts under my hand –

our pyre’s lifespan.

Upon the gurney lies the corpse

Eyes and mouth sutured

in a running line.

Putrefying flesh frozen by formaldehyde

The creature’s journey

compressed

into history’s fold.

This mammal of timid rank,

its fears

drank the last drop

of blood.

Its dreams were left

on the side of the road

like the carcass of a bird.

In that amphitheater of frozen specters –

time exists

and climbs to the corner

where the soul lives

caught between what it knew

and what it wishes to sing.

I think I’ll cut my right hand off and ship

it to the place beneath night’s cold embrace. 

I’ll grow resigned to life’s uncertain grip

upon which only words will leave a trace.

With every word I leave myself across

these weathered pages etched with lasting lore.

Where you now find peace was built on great loss

but torn remains make way for souls to soar.

For they too saw a burden to be borne —

the silent ghosts formed from their childhood rites —

haunting minds yet breathing life every morn

and now they rest upon their holy sites. 

So when my corpse snuffs light’s final spark

Know I’m well-versed with travels in the dark.

Will death come to me 

with the fragrance of irises?

The waxy purple — my crown

upon a future throne and velvet robe.

Life had gifted roses

left to wither

and carry as a ruined birthright.

A red crest pinned to my chest.

I’ll travel from life to death

with an orchid at hand.

Fuzzy greenish-white scepter

that will never fester.

In my tomb, 

iris, rose, and orchid will rest.

Their petals dry and breaking

Like a girl who leaves none aching.

Do you deserve eternity?

The kind that lives as the ink dries

and renders the sun   

blind to time.

Was it only I 

the victim – 

raised to burn 

for one who won’t return?

A fire crackles low 

as my skin melts into bone.

If I become a skeleton,

exposed upon a shrine,

can you light a candle 

and stay

on a Wednesday?

You’ll survive in the space 

between reality and regret 

for living on a page

revives you 

in a prison box.

They’ll place you

in a casket,

lowered to the ground.

And then – one day

they’ll know

all I ever wrote

glistened in the light 

but remained

my shrouded rite. 

Before the sun died, 

it lit a fire in your tomb 

You and I two glowing embers, 

waiting to be ash.

One final snip

of the strings of memory

that connect me to you

free

 neglected 

   wings.