feint & burrow

this is built from benign neglect
this catalog of sorrows
this longest warmest winter
this don’t look behind you
this is a know-later haunting
this scratch across my cheek
this last time I see you 

a frisson scattered electric
bad    water    gravity    timing
now comes the gentling
some idea of keeping care
historic, tainted
rising ruby and tripled
a catastrophe standing upright
creature-shaped and heaving
all petrol-stank and grift
a crunchy salt line 
a hatch rusted open
a watermark
the way egress sounds like escape
tunnel, tunnel, and shift
the rules kept changing
ever the go-getter was I
like a reverse-goldmine
long gone days 
not complaining much
of co-op bin rice
cinderblock bookshelves
spider plants forever birthing
you a vegan with baconbreath
and me five kinds of former
like impossible math
pretending we aren’t 
internet-findable
ether-trafficked and evermore
neither liquid nor gas
tentatively stabilized
we dreamt ourselves mineral
hewn by weather
like anchors 
heavy    raggedy    mudbound
each day a clipped edge
raking