edge

there is a certain hard look
                              that I wear on my face.

I wish I didn't.

there is a blade of truth
                               that hides under my tongue.

someday, I will get angrier
                                        at you
                                              than you will allow me to.

here, on the edge of things,
                                    it is slippery.
                                             the blade cracks like glass.
                                                      the sky shatters.

from the terrace

rainy evening I

you woke me up, and

we’re here now. I write poetry

in the damp insides of my mouth

and try not to break your

overfull heart.

the sky shudders and darkens. I hide

behind a bower in the mango tree, and smoke

a lonesome cigarette. the smoke is a silver thread

the wind pulls out of my mouth. like a secret poem.

listen, I still don’t know

whether I’m living okay. but I have words

like loose change in my pockets, and dreams

the size of cities. light slants onto my 

fingers and paints them gold.

my mother and I are listening

to the music you sent me. some of it

leaves me billowing, larger than the frame

of my little bones. a rag left in the wind

that expands to the size of a sea.

in the distance, I hear a train rumble.

the sky is quiet now, it has spent its fury.

everything is dewdrops and damp skin and light.

the lost birds start to call to me again. I tell them

to wait. to go on. to find me again.