Return to Sender

In a tan station wagon, cruising up Fifteenth Street,
we were mere seedlings, aching to shoot up from our
earthen pots.

Bare bones in the breeze, floating on the back of a
Victory-8, murmur of deprivation from the
shadows of their lives.

Meet me by the streetlight next to the mailbox that is
no longer there (you know the one); I shall wrap you in
the balmy blankets of 1996.

Brain Swimming

Snow falls slowly like
driblets of white molasses,
buying depleted time as
they drift down to
impenetrable ground.

Snow white pillows,
two for the taking,
bear contrasting forms,
come to their graves
at separate strokes.

Hair, black as chimney
gut, cover frozen feet,
now, forever untethered
from ballroom floors,
glittering under diamond eyes.

Hair, blue as heaven’s
head, knows not bold breeze
or branch’s balance, wings
unmoving–heart unfeeling,
all in one morning blink.

Unlikely companions in
false memory’s kettle, fade
into recesses of fable and fancy,
perceiving nothing save what I
have imagined.