I remember you, something nasty
in the whites of your eyes; all reflections
are projections, you leave behind welts
I watch the flies
summer bombers dragging their bodies
through the air, I wonder if they too wish to die
or if they live by the rush of almost-gone
knievel survivalism, counterphobia
I go outside my mind only to drag everything
back with me, the old men and their dynamite gals
still playing cards with all the court’s faces cut out
the only thing we can lose is time, and even then
it’s not time we’re losing, it’s our bonds loosening
isotopes destabilizing, I don’t know anything about
anything, really, though, who’s to say
most everything is fake, a red herring, a false prophet
dirty shepherds breaking bread with the wolves in the hay
we make it all up as we go
I’m a thing I invented as a child left alone
you’re a picture in my mind I redefine every afternoon
all scream-fueled locomotives
smiling like nothing’s wrong
but I’ll find a song to sing
to calm down
I’ll loosen my grip and fade out
without a sound
the bones of a mouse in an owl’s egg
pictures of eyes worn at the edges somewhere
in a crater on the moon
