Act Seven

I am held within these claims: that I have kissed unlucky
things, buried pets, eaten sugar-free ice cream, endured a first
blood test, made friends without benefits, and lost them

found new ways of saying what is not ever enough to say
ways to fish, to drink, to park, to burn, to burn into
something new, with this life I have been careful

too much, disciplined to the extent of (dis)remembrance
infrequent colours pissed into the wind, I don’t remember
when I decided to fold into my self, or when walking

foot before foot to the feeding ground of murderous birds
became the way to admit that words can be a giving up
outcome of years rearranging a subterranean scar

***

and I have been called many things late at night
greener grass, scientific utopia, dream of ancestors
what about rainy weekends, what about poltroons,

the doomed cults full of hyper-rational people
who’ve miscalculated the heights of doors, how many
stairs are left, and when stood up from a tumble

find polite applause, find the romance of liberal
consumption on the news, anyway, any sharp
thing is a short distance from possible to voluble

father, what about a foot laid down hard on the gloss
of the business-suited, the testing birds that remind
me I am just as committed to expression as to freedom