In the thick
of it, she walks
all the way around
the mess

of road destruction
she almost bought
23 years ago.

It’s not the drizzly
November in her soul.
It’s the breeding lilacs
out of the dead

land, mixing memory
and desire. Can’t be bothered
to dig out

any quotation
marks. It’s the splaying
across mud-caked,
still-drained fountains.

The heat of Sunday
colliding with Monday’s
sleet. The horror

of another desertion
hanging in the sky
like some pink,
pink, pink, pink,

pink moon
hungover from
another decade.

It’s the dread
of reaching

another blank wall
so thickened

even the blood
won’t stain it.

Relief that no one
remembered to unlock
the cellar door.

Between the acts,
I feel the rail vibrate
against the side of my boot.

Without proper
line breaks, there it goes
again. The west side

tries to get a message
through, using some restored
Morse code.

dit dit dit
dah dah dah
dit dit dit

We’re all passengers tonight—
riding out secrets on the rails,
waiting for Mr. Pop to take the stage.

I’ve already gotten vertigo
before it begins,
high up in the gallery circle clouds.

The notes I’ve taken in the dark
during the opening act
are more legible

than anything I write
when the house lights
go up after it’s all over.

And there is no more
except to forget the rose.
Accept the thorn

as part of the pain of living
with a strummed-worn
lyric heart.

Her there
is not his there
is not your there

where a lone tangerine
has come to a full stop
against a street lamp

a few feet
from a pile of dead leaves
and other organic matter.

In there, you see
a detached squirrel
tail you don’t have

the guts to study
up close. You keep
walking and continue

the conversation you’ve begun
having with yourself
under your breath

about the color orange.
You won’t mention tacos
or papayas when you reply.

she never used
a church key
to puncture her way
into a carbonated escape

vaguely recalls
those hazards
of running around barefoot
she regularly ignored

tear strip or Sta-Tab
all the beer and soda cans
she opened to pour the precious liquid
down her throat

got her here
where everything
becomes something else
to survive

Outside. Wave ringlets spread across
the surface of a city pond in the rain.

It’s so hard to tell exactly when
night falls in this weather.

Inked-in echo drawings spill on the fabric
that covers her skin. Inside. Symbolism

has no place on pajama bottoms.
With or without feet. Even ones worn

to school. Nomadic symbols travel through covered bridges to the beat of thunder

breaking overnight. They get soaked,
bleed into the soil, provide nutrients

for a roadside rain garden where petals only look black, only feel like velvet.

And it’s enough to tell another story
about unrequited love.

rifles through
a Peaches LP crate
in search of the loudest

gets a ride
to the local teen
rec center

a band slams into
a raucous version
of the Cars’
“You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”

wonders how
lips can get
so shiny red

holding up
a back wall
gets her a ride
in a tan convertible

not sure
which one
she likes

the blonde or
the one
with dark curls
and blue eyes

oh never mind

soccer games
and the beginning
of linear athletics

round trip
to the Jersey Shore
and back

something always
gets lost
in translation

news of
death by drowning
in a Florida pool
decades later

next time she swims
it better be
the ocean

You burn
it to the ground.
Now you want
to worship
before a liar’s pit
of wet ashes.

Your tragic flaw
is not that you ate
dirt as a child.
It’s that you could not stand
the taste,
that it made you sick

for the smell
of melting sand
and scorched dead
man’s fingers.