you close the door,
leaving your news behind
like a tiny egg
i send my voice after you
it thickens sweeps soft from my lips
it has become a dark brown
thing a furred wing flailing
i am freighted with
words for you i carry them
between my teeth jokes nicknames rules for pillow fighting
the particulars of the broken
window the fact that stage 3 is not
stage 4 how i know about
your shoplifting charge from year 10
& still remember the precise
location of the matchbox car
i hid from you
in 1979 the great results they get from keyhole surgery
these days
the words clog
and swarm
all i am is this
wrong kind of chattering
it makes me think how
after fire certain
blackened saplings
grow their leaves wrong that is all along their arms not out at their fingers
like the charred bark can only
speak its cause over and over having lost
all other habit
but i can't
tell you this or anything
like this
only cough you
the mothdust
from under my tongue