Little Pieces


 
Little Pieces


Your sugar lips i never bit
are liquid bells fluttering
in this quiet place
smuggled past closed eyes
sighs and goodbyes
where i lay you in grace
embarrassed and steaming
scorched thighs dawning
luscious and fawning
clenched and howling
through shadows shattering
the sublime loneliness of night

until  morning piously unfolds
my smothered refusal
of your absence gaping
bright and sharp
in the silver chill of dawn
where a telephone wire strung with birds
quietly lifts into the half light
when i call out to you in quiet panic
each desperate prayer
a negation of the exhausting farce
we both coolly decline
for the infinite warmth
of our pressed bodies
if not for the delinquency
of your non existence
throughout my days clamoring
vulgar barking
shrewd silences
and ignoble suspicions

that you were the unquestioned calm
after those long bike rides
mouth sticky with stolen loquots
young and small
yet already too big for the world
that unlabored clarity
now fading with mistrust

are you
the remembering what i've always known?
or am i
stumbling into the forgotten conclusion
that you never really existed?
at least not in any practical sense
and really
what sense is that?

hello?
are you sleeping?
i don't want to be a bother-
(the best you ever had)
have you ever belonged so strongly
you knew you could never break
into all those little pieces
worn soft as forgetfulness
that you swore didn't exist
while you picked yourself up
taking far too much time

or was that me?



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Drafts in chronological order: