Lightning to the East

          and to the west, scraped shins
a song or two about a broken heart inevitably and I push push push
this thing I can't touch          about face
about time          this terrible reason
in the face of it all       this disarticulated greed
and the orifices all around          all      around
comme ça      but I'm just not sure
       and this repeats and this repeats because it's late
(when will I get tired of this? soon soon)
      because it's late
I am inexplicably sad, or explicably everything
memory does not make sense, memory makes memory
it's all a tease          and the real moment breaks
the real story of your life a halting narrative, instance / sliced
put back together (uh-oh)       this disarticulated absence
         in which we collide

Friction Loss [a newer draft]

Time to back up. Time to look
across one's shoulder, blink
a surreptitious flick of the, no, not
embarrassment. Effigy. But? Forgot my sunglasses again. That kind of
sympathetic thump. Just in the nick of

An artificial display of affection or interest. An opportunity
to back up, to look across one's indigence, to impute
potential heartbreak. Forgot myself again. That kind of
penury. That blip on the surface, that reflection or that
aspiration—curses, flubbed again.

I pretend to recognize these birds.
I slip from the sidewalk.
I covet my former self.
I congregate, around the edges
things just went dark.

And so the landscape squiggles. The edges overlap.


My heart just broke open and sang a bit.