Sweetbread pancreas in ever late valleys
Snow does not touch the angry, hostile climates
Of backwater burgs where bugs are king
Mike was sipping on noodles on the floor
He slurped and segued from one topic always back
Always back to the single topic we were trying to avoid
"How long?" he wanted to know
Shrugged off the alabaster experienced night
With carrion overtone of wanting need
The blood in our veins had changed
Adapted to the need
Mike was limp in anticipation
Bones turned to liquid
Soon to harden to glass
Before shattering in hours
And the slivers could get to your heart
Your brain
Your soul
And the wretched secret courtesy
Of less lethal hostilities
A union built of need
Bared his teeth before the throng
And we all looked away
Afraid to confront what we were doing
Nick was still upright
In vapor trail alibis
A heart made out of rubber
We bargained some kind of peace with the universe
Brokered a deal
Through secret channels open only to us
Would we turn against each other
And expose our backs to the knife?
Could we trust anyone besides ourselves?
And I ask you
How do you trust yourself?
When pinprick betrayals are the note of the day
Posted several times over
By trembling hands of giants
You look in the mirror and the appearance is still you
But the eyes belong to something else
You see yourself through borrowed equipment
The landscape leased with dulcet overtones
As only you can
The one
The only
Incorrigible
Unforgettable
And irrefutable
Bare knuckle shadowboxer
That comprise those growing years
When muscles make bone splints
And textbook Egyptian monarchies
Left like social structures
Plans scattered across overturned cars
Westbound and stalled perpetual
You stop chasing the sun
And give up the days altogether
And hallucinate years down the road
The blushing bride of southern destiny
Once painted on bombers and now in your bed
Holding forth two silver items, impossible to interpret at this distance
And all you argue over
Is which movie to watch on a Saturday night
Or where the can opener is
And now you're taking medical advice from a palm reader
Not virginal, the opposite of that
Assured you once that you would be married in a better life
But this life has other priorities
And when the messenger arrives with a dispatch
The soldiers fall into line
Tie down those serpent veins
And turn backs to reason
Pointed at the next best future
Out with angry hopheads on endless missions to turn a corner
Every con reworked to fit a narrow timetable
Plotting scores in diner bathrooms
Scorched pool halls
In galleries shooting themselves for thrills
And you have gotten married to your worst life
Now that the dropper's been relieved of its tension
And the slack disappears as you count the rings inside yourself
Planning suicide to escape your uneasy failures
What wings these angels have
What claws we can grow
The sorest spot of all is not where the needle entered your arm
But where the arrow was removed from your heart
Impossible to determine from this distance
Two steps forward and three steps back
But moving forward despite it all
Mike with his noodle soup
Explaining the intricacies of the cardiovascular system
Leading back once again
To the marrow's need, the fiber's being
That glorious heart's pumping demand
Can't be determined from this distance
But life was about something and for something
Even if only to be against everything
And that wave began to roll back
So nights in a dark room
Whose walls no longer sweat blood in the dead of night
I can look back over my own bowl of noodle soup
And see Mike sitting, slouched, on an angle of sorrow
And I can see that high water mark
From where the wave slowly pulled back
We'd break antenna dreams over comfort food
And build a fortress of unity against what drove us here
None of us walked willingly
Rather our feet guided us pointedly
As we turned chalk for secret keys
Counting sugar crystals and the weight of milk powder
Factoring in the size of the beast
The importance of the moment
A length of habit
Until brittle shores were calmed by rain
And with the tide
We'd roll back out for a few hours
To drift
And if I'd come to the ocean in those days
I would have walked on into it
And collide with the waves
Screaming my own savage silence
About the weight on my back
The hunger in my poor veins
As my legs and arms
My teeth and liver
Would each have their own story to tell
Six thousand years later
When I appear
Three hundred miles away
From that place
Where we traded punches with ourselves
And saw through the eyes we did not own
The bodies we had somehow inhabited
Through crook or con