sunlight bleeds over her hair, mangled
ginger with flecks of bronze. she combs through her curls
with one hand and ties them together with the other, asking,
where are we going? i don’t know, i say, turning
right. wrong move. soon, concrete bumps jump
to lumps trodden with dirt interred pebbles; pines fade
into barren alder.
tropical malady.
a footnote: a brittle shell
on shore. they tell me
it’s estavation, clinical torpor,
cured by isolation and the buzzing
of an aircon that hasn’t been cleaned
in two years.
spindle arms and legs,
i wish you’d let me hold you
when the winds blow.
cloying tangerines,
i sometimes-always dream of you
progress: eight characters
on the keyboard. now, nine words
lie placid, justified by the impositions
of margins and spacing.
this mess won’t clean itself,
i say, looking at the mirror.
i scratch your wooden cheek
to crack the varnish and
extract gold from your
liquid baubles
a crown of asphodels in her hair she lies
on milky grass her hair flows
like rivers