For Posterity

Coin-worn pockets
Stapled to the wall
For posterity.

Lemon lip balm crust
And bits of the label
Balled up on the mantle.

Soft echo of a well wish
Rolling around
In a dried up bottle.

Flecks of spilt paint
Preserved between panels
Remember their color.

Thinking stool, turned table,
Half-turned kindling,
And last used for an idle gnaw;

Notes scratched on it
With the broken handle
Of a soft-bristled toothbrush:

“Initials hearts initials”
“I remember better”
“Think I’ll leave”

What looks the print
Of a half-dragged boot
Over the softly rotting threshold.

Naff Douglas

Naff Douglas listens candidly
As the ache of paralysis wanes.

Naff’s fate is to listen well
To grateful unsaved souls.

Vagaries gently muddle his truth
And he comes to revel in indistinction—

Taking the yoke gratefully,
Like a spindly ox whose duties lighten with its self—

Who would give to sustain Naff
When his service is so singularly replaceable?

Yet even ease can be burdensome
To one made to be used,

And Naff slumps beneath
Noticing candidly—

Too late for joy or terror—
Nothing cannot be undone.

This Second

A second arrived,
Fastidiously fit,
Impossibly long,
And timely.

A third alights
Upon this second
And I’m past—
Their past—

A first serving
A need
Until
This second.

Promise

Last wishes sway
With promise as they leave,

Dancing languid through moments
Scraped thin,

Passing each other nightly
With nescient intent.

Let it end
And watch for their flourish—

For all their courting,
They dower naught

But a vulgar clump
Of formalwear.

Hope the Cat

“Hope the cat didn’t bother you.”

(An avalanche of expectations
Hushed by stark disregard,
Swept out of sight
Like the mess of a rude child.

The world should have tilted
Under the sudden weight of the silence—
Spun in retreat back to when silence
Was companionable.

Flesh should have served
As the final decrier,
But there was no flesh in this,
Only the proxy of distance—

Who remits an apogee of suffering
As a wink of light,
Who transforms a thread of truth
Into a web of invention.)

The cat proved the closest comfort.

A Dull Ache

A dull ache,
Like a film
That doesn’t rub away.

Old,
Like it’s grown tired
Of itself.

Whitish,
Like a blind eye
That still moves with its mate.

Metallic–
A sour rust
That slowly poisons.

Unsung,
Like its ancestors–
Why sing of them?

Wet–
Under so long,
Dryness is a dream.

Sighing
As it settles
Into its forever.

Untitled

A light – craven,
Brightly dwindles.

7

A boy like honey
Once loved a girl like lava.
Now they’re both sweet stone.

6

Look at the window,
Your reflection, then the world.
One of them is real.

Old Home

Listless floorboards,
Scatty halls,

Cornice sagging,
Ornery creaks.

Winking doorways,
Censored windows,

Basement sweating,
Breathless preserves.

Obtrusive stud,
Barren corner,

Careless backfill—
Foundation spent.