the thing about time

you are absent

& i am absence

with oil-black wings
roach, you woke us
sent us screaming 
for sprays and tissues
the sanctuary of our bed
defiled somehow

for your trespass
we offered no clemency
only the toilet’s white throat
and now we sleep    or try,
too aware of every tickle

tonight let’s sleep like children

passionless & exhausted

tangle up our heavy limbs

unconcerned with how we look,

let us pile together here

our breathing steady, deep

& wake only to shift some warmth

into the chill of spaces left absent 

sleep escapes me

on silver hooves

and there it was,

a rain-smeared street

a handful of yellow leaves

& the smell of autumn struck,

its ancestral shiver

a call to light the fires

pull the furs close &

to listen for the sound

of animals     hungry

on the concrete outside

he planned his escape 

for years

until he couldn’t tell

out from in

you cross longitudes

& my midnight

becomes your noon

we stand 

upside down

sole to sole

the planet in between

& all the stars spin

from me to you

we lay the words we spoke that evening end to end to end

and they became a bridge for us to walk upon from there to here

a late-night television stupor

folded me in backlit dreams

pretend

when we clink glasses

that the five of us

do not glance

at doors or watches,

that we are

as we once were

in-jokers    inseparable,

that we have not

gone awkward

incomprehensible

to each other over time,

that we can gather

rarely      in old haunts

and like ghosts 

pretend

the past has not

been lost

and so we begin two weeks without,

like gasping through blankets for air,

i pace         listen to new noises

that creep from the corners

i watch the shadows grow,

chew at fingernails too long

until they’re much too short

hoping that one more late night

will leave me too tired to miss you

        again tomorrow

i am noise scattered distraction static crawling termites pixel flashing focus jumped and juddering frame-speed landslide pebbles shifting hammer in the disk drive broken scratched across the vinyl pop and hiss the data file corrupt and frozennnnnnnnnnnnnnn

geez that smell of black rubber

deep in his hands from when

he hid in stacks of truck tires

from the police

wishin’ he had a gun

or clean jeans    skin

burnt in the sun,

lips cracking,

& this here is the last gas

for however many miles

but he’s got no car

     only ten years old

with pocketmunny stole 

from drunk uncle Joel

& maybe it’ll take him

far enough

to clean up in some ocean

and maybe it won’t

but if there’s one thing

he knows it’s that 

he’s not

                 goin’

                           back

bring autumn’s dry kiss

to make me shiver, a leaf 

blushing, ready for the fall

clear skies and distant lightning

the city quiet at three a.m.

and above us jupiter gleams, 

raging in its endless storms

as we stumble home to sleep

we go out: 

clothes chosen

hair arranged, we

draw the curtains

on our bodies

to be seen