Florida, 2015

Arching back and a 

million dots of heaven 

a million shots of 

shivering spears shaped 

to cross the neighbors on 

a bush positioned to accuse 

what cotton candy strokes 

soot hasn’t spiked 

in the sky yet. And outside

the supermarket bathes in 

peaching breaths. Come night 

the absence of furry wash 

only leaves the negative 

three pronged and proving 

parking lot light a ghost

that delivers my terror

this time asleep and unscared;

I can finally breathe.

The first and my flatness

signs off on cobalt

and the mesh screen retreats 

saying yes and ceding knees 

to red kneeling on rice.

This is the punishment for 

needing less and not needing

and trusting every dusk 

green chose to let 

wane and whispering. 

You taught me the comedy 

fear brings to greet unknowns 

is the shot of animality 

in a sleeping child’s cries. 

We’ve torn from theirs 

to teach lying, ours 

is one of caricatures 

and all we can manage 

giving is putty palms 

that always melt. 

My sticky hands collect candy 

store reflections on doors 

that only lead to more 

doors. They’re performers 

every shiniest façade

extremity of disguises 

the paragon of fraud 

but I still awe because 

my eyelashes can’t help but 

join in to the rush of 

reflecting iridescence. 

I can feel rippling of rocks 

dropped, two radial ribbed 

pearls that swell

sigh of relief 

infected and rejecting entrance

I hope from hindsight’s 

chariot of glass. How 

silly the past looks 

rectangular, exposing the 

creator, dishonest and 

always looking away a 

second too early. Back then 

I only snapped photos for a 

memory card to store until it 

died pregnant with rectangles 

it would take to the grave

A sharpie to the printed back 

refused to entertain a lie 

“Florida, Jan. 2015” 

denying they capture any life. 

Four years later I 

draw my focus across 

the dormant images, part 

the colors floating, rearrange 

their animate textures to 

practice the feeling of living. 

These words but you 

can’t re-live what 

you missed. The window 

and the challengers of outlines 

shake the absence from glass.