There is a laziness in the light

while evening shadows crouch in fear

behind too much sun, still breathing heavily,

pushing their way, like pain.

________

Windows marble and cut the

dusk, more raw for her energy.

She pants, lurching over a tired prow,

pinching the hours before a Marco Polo

entrance. An ache of greying green sprawls

out on the dirty floor, like boredom.

________

What dalliances lay their grievous joie de misère

under tables of discontent? What mis-

matched lyrics to over-sung songs

ever find their way back to tired voices?

They strain through candied throats the coughed up

suggestions of music more real for its yearning, like lust.

________

Perhaps if Hemingway’s whiskey’d voice, husky

in remonstrance, bellowed his last lines

first of the last first tale?

Told last, would it matter less?

Through Tequilla’d sight, he climbed to heights sufficient to

claim a boastful repast and only good came.

Let’s invoke a simpler meaning to all that hides. Conveying

messages in the unbidden shivers of quilted days, like drunk.

________

“Steady on,” the curtains answer, chilled in

the gossip of an impatient midnight. “Nothing is

yet. Just memorize what couldn’t be found

among the bones.” There will be

another branch to add to another tree,

that only cares to know

what happens afterward, like now.

________

Picture found here