The blades of grass are tall and sharp, curve like sabers from martian floors, clink in the wind, spark in the night, walk through till you’re ribbons, bleed out till you’re slight, feed my red pasture, cut loose and lay, rediscover the lover you lost on the away.

About the second whiskey in my guards depart on midnight trains, and fell the station of refrain, wherein, wherein, wherein

I start to clamber back to tracks, where sleepers step with railed regret, and for a moment I forget the lack, the lack, the lack

of fastened steel that’s tried and true; it courses in pursuit of bends that buckle at the force you send into, into, into

my wheels-for-feet that grip the turn, knock loose the rusted threads and heads, chase down the straights for those who fled; Return! Return! Return!

Some nights when the air was warm and calm we’d set up chairs, angled to the gap in the trees, peeking at the bay, the moon, the port, the city, from the balcony of our Jack London Square apartment; two transplant wanderers, far from friends, family, and home, gambling on the good nature of strangers, and too proud of our independence to consider that we might actually need each other.

You: packing some exotic tobacco into an ornate, wooden pipe. Me: making a mess of the shoulder of a BevMo cigar.

We toasted with scotch, spoke slow, traded wisdoms, subdued the moment like blowing smoke into bee hives, and surmised who we would marry.

A quick thought…

There’s a vacuum left by softer thoughts; these spaces made by stepping back invite the very worst we’ve fought to descend upon and pull the slack.

Dabble in the dark, and close the door.

Fumbling at buttons, and fall to floors.

Reaching out for faces; finding more.

Breathing into spaces; bent, she braces her core.

Clawing walls for switches, to see the score.

Counting the stitches she must endure.

—

It’s not often I write a disclaimer, but here it is. I did not know where this poem was going, and it is not based on any life event I’ve witnessed or been told. Sometimes the words just kinda happen. I was hesitant to post, but it made me more nervous to keep it hidden.