look of nicotine ice

they have river rock eyes
clouded by nicotine
smoke that blends into
the air by a frozen STOP sign,
a pause, a puff
a stare from blue-veined ringed
eyes that stare with defiance
“you think you’re better than me?”
as the neighborhood stretches and moans
and their rainbowed lips purse.
two of them stand next to a
yard, a slide and jump ropes,
multi-colored windows and a happy face sticker to
match with bruised paper skin
and adhesive color fingertips,
harder than the fissures in the road,
silver and gold flash in morning light,
just walk on by.  recognizing one,
ringed rock eyes watch,

fade.
young.
she’s already dying.
inside to out.



silverware gleam

her besparkled fingers
dazzle as she points in
the opposite direction, away
from her display case of
winking fakes and lies,
as in her parallel life she
pulls the spun and gleaming
hundred dollar a yard wool
over your lazy eyes
as she blinks her
blue surrounded red eyes
and cackles her lilting words
past silverware fingers.

to redirect your attention
as you buy into it
all.



glazed syllables

their glazed eyes drift
towards me and past and
back into a sneer
to make
my very skin creep deeper
into my clothes,
further and farther,
closer to my heartbeat
as the blood cools
and their mouths
move in silent syllables that
never make it
because I’m running,
running, stumbling,
down a hill and across
an echoed bridge over
slow, dirty water.

I swear
my heart
just burst.



chain link pull

no, it’s never a jump,
but a flinching away
from the sound of
the bark, the pad of
claws, the knife edge
teeth that could match
those four faded circles
that could scar insides
forever
pulling.  it’s a stroll
across the hushed road
half a hazy block
away
and the closed
eyes that shiver in closed
sockets
as the animal
pushes against the leash, away
from the tree that
grounds it still too
close for comfort

in the frostbit yard under
my struggling, frozen feet.



hummingbird mercury

as you pulled into the driveway,
I watched your pale
cracked lips form words
of beautiful hummingbird poetry,
that slid around on
the matted floor like mercury
and got sucked into
the vents of stale car air.

I have never noticed
before
how alike we are.