So like a hare running and so like a flash of earth,

fingers are stretched, wild, clawing at the sky,

until the lips come down.

 

Breathe, breathe, breathe

and the history will back off,

and the castle will govern

it's fading tulip

to dance like a skylark, beginning to rain again.

 

Beginning to be afraid to gain

like a cold cancer

and frightening sisters that look like you

in parcel form, but underneath

is a guage of black ice

like a splinter in

a  thrush's chest.

 

Behold the vivid red can stain

a bathroom floor many ways

and a forest

would sway for your path

if the shattered ribcage

was allowed outside the mind.

 

Just

a blind man

stumbling, is what you say -

he knows not what he touches.

A hand is a tool

with five eyes, who are you kidding?

 

Branded in the shadow of another girl

is enough to colonize your gut with saucers.

Why, this is no rest

for a brittle apple rolling around

in heart attacks.

 

Shut up, shut up, shut up,

and the slap need not come

everyday

like a winter,

like a stone, like a hollowed skull

like a gnawed bone.

Like a dead girl in your skin.