I walk
away with demons, islands in cities,
terrified
of love, suffocation on love,
abandoned
by love. I feel hardened by
anguish,
sold on condition – made indifferent
to
love; begging love, scrabbling across
love,
reaching into pain, graphic, innocent,
lousy
at disguise – lousy at love. a person is
suffused
by love, or lusts, or loneliness – arms
screaming,
surefire gathering, berries are
in
orchards. I feel hardened by hope, untold
stories,
allegories rehashed, mercy made
believable.
we work out trauma, if fortunate,
if
love prevails—dragged up poles, poisoned
upstairs,
love takes its blows, its lines, its
pills.
much a bin of ashes, more than
wholeness;
durable soupbones, gloss
in
eyes, mopping with tears. I walk away
with
wraiths and phantoms and ghosts—
moving
in speeds, neglected by a need,
watching
medias, determined to give joy.
a
soul has towed herself to safety.
she
carries anger, pains, sin, wounds.
I walk
to her, foolish pride, I speak to
interference,
making inference, tugging
an
aphorism – I withdraw.
