The lifetime fool now knowing the consequences

The porcupine handing out views of a sandstorm

Fog splitting the shoulder blades of surrender

Was ice really so dexterous in the bloodstream

Was the broken thermometer really the best demagogue

Who shoed your keyboard all the way to lost September

What can an equinox tell you that you don’t want to hear

Guidance is an upside-down bucket in a graveyard

Exhaustion is a poorly fed goat on a sleek hillside

Blistering his way forward into green air he met the expected

Rain arriving from half the world away gave birth to running wild

More than four wheels dreams the climbing snail

Overturn that stone in your ring finger

She was never going to say yes

Get out with your knees if you have to

Climb into your throat if you must snake a grief

Stop with the African memory bigging your belly

A womb is no place to squabble about past choices

Why is your transformation picking at sand

The revolution begins in the hospital

A phoenix in hesitance can both cause and absorb pain

After the sun comes the nail and after the nail comes the postage stamp

And only the broken crucifix can tell the difference

So mail yourself to the new life while you can still find your legs   

Move past the past with its mouths made of stripped leaves

Even for a fool with a tongue accumulating stretched shade you can wander

That’s where we’ll meet on the other side of the pandemic’s long wait

Where the rainforest is dripping with its densely clothed skin

And all your reformed lusts are erased memories

Reflected in the splash of an extinction’s first tear