12.13.2021

I taste the grit of heartbreak.

                            1. 
From the house of death there is rain 
From rain is flood and flowers. 
And flowers emerge through the ruins 
of those who left behind 
stores of corn and dishes, 
turquoise and bruises 
from the passion 
of fierce love. 
 
                            2. 
I run my tongue over the skeleton 
jutting from my jaw. I taste 
the grit of heartbreak. 
 
                            3. 
The procession of spirits 
who walk out of their bodies 
is ongoing. Just as the procession 
of those who have loved us 
will go about their business 
of making a new house 
with someone else who smells 
like the dust of a strange country. 
 
                            4. 
The weight of rain is unbearable to the sky 
eventually. Just as desire will 
burn a hole through the sky 
and fall to earth. 
 
                            5. 
I was surprised by the sweet embrace 
of the perfume of desert flowers after the rain 
though after all these seasons 
I shouldn't be surprised. 
 
                            6. 
All cities will be built and then destroyed. 
We built too near the house of the gods of lightning,
too close to the edge of a century. 
What could I expect, 
my bittersweet. 
 
                            7. 
Even death who is the chief of everything 
on this earth (all undertakings, all matters of human 
form) will wash his hands, stop to rest under 
the cottonwood before taking you from me 
on the back of his horse. 
 
                            8.
Nothing I can sing 
will bring you back. 
Not the songs of a hundred horses running 
until they become wind 
Not the personal song of the rain 
who makes love to the earth. 
 
                            9. 
I will never forget you. Your nakedness 
haunts me in the dawn when I cannot distinguish your 
flushed brown skin from the burning horizon, or my hands. 
The smell of chaos lingers in the clothes 
you left behind. I leave you 
there. 
 

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