Every musician blind or limb-
less do the feelings drag
harder for it
here art is so rare they call it Living
the high wet noise of economy
pitch of palm leaf along a throat
please don’t step on the bones
each wet season spits up
or keep as dark souvenir to prove
you recognize do you
feel another’s pain in the palm of
your hand dry & nearly weightless
the sea-light is especially full
life-drunk just beneath the crash
drift all the things I fear
or the fear of nothing I gather
the dead things puffed up & nameless
as all the obvious fetishes or imitating
the sucking of air between my
teeth propping up my shirt
the cats gather at the switch
of the generator in hot dark lack
the trees slip away all left a lapping
sea or the circle of fur
skin-met is the sound is the
sound is the sound I stroke back
and hope
the sea-lights take shape as
I pay to watch a boy in his underwear
catch and end my dinner’s life
the light again goes limp
and I’m thankful for it my name
becomes stranger every time
I say it I’ve been convinced
of nothing but the mere fact of listen
I’m sorry for in my mind I reversed it
and you were dead we all were
better for it
this is too close to the truth yet
still a shade of purple or the sigh
of a door with pressure applied
let’s call it pressure to be precise
I lay you down wanting only
to put you back breath-to-
breath I could make no demands
better people than us have kept
in the fake-breathed days we lived
by the pulse of your damp vault
of course there was the snow-
muffle chill of every basement’s
banality of boxes full of fuck-knows
for the Christmas ornaments were still
on the tree like a sick mirror
of the word I wont write the quiet
between your father and I as he moves care-
fully through the sightless white
guilt of my own warm breath
obscuring the dark reflection
less do the feelings drag
harder for it
here art is so rare they call it Living
the high wet noise of economy
pitch of palm leaf along a throat
please don’t step on the bones
each wet season spits up
or keep as dark souvenir to prove
you recognize do you
feel another’s pain in the palm of
your hand dry & nearly weightless
the sea-light is especially full
life-drunk just beneath the crash
drift all the things I fear
or the fear of nothing I gather
the dead things puffed up & nameless
as all the obvious fetishes or imitating
the sucking of air between my
teeth propping up my shirt
the cats gather at the switch
of the generator in hot dark lack
the trees slip away all left a lapping
sea or the circle of fur
skin-met is the sound is the
sound is the sound I stroke back
and hope
the sea-lights take shape as
I pay to watch a boy in his underwear
catch and end my dinner’s life
the light again goes limp
and I’m thankful for it my name
becomes stranger every time
I say it I’ve been convinced
of nothing but the mere fact of listen
I’m sorry for in my mind I reversed it
and you were dead we all were
better for it
this is too close to the truth yet
still a shade of purple or the sigh
of a door with pressure applied
let’s call it pressure to be precise
I lay you down wanting only
to put you back breath-to-
breath I could make no demands
better people than us have kept
in the fake-breathed days we lived
by the pulse of your damp vault
of course there was the snow-
muffle chill of every basement’s
banality of boxes full of fuck-knows
for the Christmas ornaments were still
on the tree like a sick mirror
of the word I wont write the quiet
between your father and I as he moves care-
fully through the sightless white
guilt of my own warm breath
obscuring the dark reflection
