h(ours).

embers trace blue as the streets

shoot themselves down four walls

surrounding arms surrounding

charms will blaze glitter over your head

so tight under heat and always long for me

like i have already left

you see how heavy we're crushing

the morning late.

revolutions and blushes.

"People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for...

And yet what they're looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water...

And the little prince added, "But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart."

hallucinatory fragments.

He pulled up towards me like a foreign dog. His protruding lower lip was duck-billed, too strange to suck. I pushed him away. Although he wanted all, I knew it wasn't his.

If muddy rivers had reflections, his white skin would be stained dull in the loftiness of its own bathwater. Speckled and absorbed into the surface, his battle marks left my face retracting over itself. In defense, my glance repeatedly resisted, crouching away from this suddenly staged reality.

Reminiscences of youth clawed at me like a bitter cat. Daring me. Awkwardly whirling fatal flirtations around my head.

Bull's Head, late November evening.

Leaning tall against the bar, to me his outline is brighter than any suspended halo. My eyes dance like two black balloons.