there is a photograph of the sunset
that shimmers in your hand as you hold
it against the sunlight

I am here with friends now
and they wish me nothing more
than all happiness

we listen to songs we used to love
when we were younger we listen
to our voices hold our former selves

the sunset is unlittered by birds
or any obstruction its perfect firmament
over the darkling water over

my heart as I see it spin within
your eyes and the statue of your body
white and white as sun on sand

everything is quiet now

Thank you, Thank you old foe, for you have been the only true friend I have never had. Thank you, for being the only one I could ever count on. Thank you for disliking me and despising me and hating me with constancy. Thank you for having the decency, the respect to tell me. Thank you for telling me you dislike me, you despise me, you hate me, for you old foe, your opinion has always been the one I have been able to count on. All my friends tell me lies, pay homage. They all give compliments, Shading insults behind praise, envy behind love, love behind hate. A self-love they acquire o

Thank you, Thank you old foe, for you have been the one true friend I have always had, Thank you, for being the only one I could ever count on regularly, Thank you for disliking me and despising me and hating me with constancy, Thank you for having the decency and respect to tell me, Thank you for telling me you dislike me and despise me and hate me, For you old foe, your opinion has always been the one I have been able to count on. All my friends tell me lies, pay homage and give compliments, Shading insults behind praise, envy behind love, and love behind hate, A self-love they can only acq

I Will Never See a Flower in Her Hair

No clashes over curfew
No arguing about mall trips
   skirt length
   too much makeup
   too slick boys

No charged silences
broken      only
by the ring of an incoming text

No sass no backtalk
followed by a quick hug
and a “see you later”

No shopping together
for a prom dress
or heels

No laughing
at the salesgirl so hungry
for a sale

No laughing
ever

Grief has no edges
No shelf life
No breath

Transit Street Transit Street is in Providence, And it leads to Benefit Street, And Poe waits at the intersection, Nearly every day, Beginning at dusk, Bleak Decembers and all other months, The bleak and the unbleak, On Poe’s days off, Lovecraft fills in, It’s just as scary, either way, And mind you the shadows.

Stone by stone,
Hardened hands clear fields unsown;
Weary arms fell long-leaf pine—
Rocks define the land we own.

Dry-stack walls
Rise as our ambition sprawls
Through a mansion with locked gates—
Worth equates with gilded halls.

Marble hearts
Do not bleed when pricked by darts,
But our turrets block the light.
From this night, no one departs:

Unbeknown,
We have buried flesh with bone
And entombed our children here—
Vaults of fear rise stone by stone.

~Homewood, Asheville, North Carolina

Evocation The pillows on my bed Are not stuffed with cotton. They are stuffed with My mother’s old sarees And lots of other childhood memories. The picture hanging there on the wall Is still full of vigour and charm. The nail hammered into the wall Ten years ago with precision Appears rusty yet very strong Unlike decaying minds And constipated thoughts. The flower vase gifted To my aunt by us Is a part of the soil now In their backyard. It hasn’t lost its shape Just the colour has faded And scratches have deepened.

licorice bleeds into lime bleeds into dust

skeletal rickshaws & ghostly sirens
tuk-tuk axles greased with human fat

neon eyes dilate & contract
limbless shadows writhe in arrack

miasma wafts over street valleys
marinates a phantom procession

a naked man sells fruits from his chesthole
papayas & pineapples & chicken hearts

cliffs of slobbering motor oil & steam
engine blocks roar under a curving carapace

and in the distance, stained glass soars
into the helicopter-stirred static

dark within minutes

The promise of morning and flea market bustle,
rouses tired hands to lay out old friends.

Faces he knows as well as his own
watch with timeless abandon.

He sets each precisely with intimate touch,
soft as forgotten caresses;

gathers their stories, pulling them close
in the bittersweet truth of parting.

Come afternoon, those hands will slow;
kissed cold by the late Autumn air

and a passing whisper in his ear -
somewhere a bell is tolling.