My dear, this dust (was laid among your feet)
Could rarely deemed a framework, period, be.
The oversaturated concrete wept
A foundation of partial tensile failure,
But all good construction, the kind that lasts
Through generations, if we get so far,
At first begins with measured demolition.

The night she told me, first, I saw your eyes.
Bespeckled hazel tones, Morrocan sand
Surrounded by an oasis of hers,
While piercing, mortally, like mostly mine.
She kissed me, fast, your lips were pursed in jest
Of eating sour citrus from my cup,
A year ago, or maybe more or less;

I wish my—I…I wish my penance could
Have been just leaving her, your tiny fingers,
The pain (I felt you almost letting go).
Instead I let it linger through a month,
Before I smelled your hair enough to grasp
At anything that kept your dimpled cheek
From disappearing altogether. Lost

Were any indications I was making
An errant brushstroke, off enough to mask
The lilting of your laugh I heard in hers
When she, and somewhere you, were in my arms
The second day, whose morning I began
The final iteratation of myself,
(But first I’d have to smother my creation).

At least attempt to prove I was deserving,
And cast my empty bottles at his toes.
I felt your lips anoint my forehead, then
She sang me twinkle while I dug my bed.
For years I tried to find the truest pitch,
and kept myself, barefoot, to busk my way
The forty-five it takes to Rotterdam.

The Epping has a stop somewhere in Rhodes; Colossus I am not, though I was saved,
By one who had some overlap of lives
When I was just a boy, and you a fish,
Or maybe more a frog, but I digress,
And simultaneously am vaulting steps…
I suddenly can’t recall how it went.

But you were there, a tangible and tangled
Knot of brain, and not of curly hair,
Though curly is an understatement now,
Before you started, naked (head at least)
Like me, and though I know it’s not the only
Variable that will keep us tied,
I hope reflections have a purposed edge

That you may shed the blights of bananas,
And learn they aren’t the only bruises left
Without the texture issue that persists,
Along with tastes and hates (that don’t exist).
And may you, like the Celtic queen who bore
You, up until we found the hull was breach,
At which point, we ascended to your whim,

Decide your worth is more than trinitite;
You will not need some blast to cut or facet
The mineral, or stone, you will become.
Should tarnish, rust, or Phoenixville alum
Find themselves at threshold out and in,
We’ll ask your mum the applicable laser,
And char them from your orbit, evermore.

A koala, a mermaid (and octopus too),
Met fast where the waves kissed the still shore anew.
The koala with fur, silken, shaggy and fine,
And the octopus, a knotted-armed tangle; all… nine?

The mermaid, excited, with froth on her face,
Tried some steps on the sand, while the others took chase.
Octopus (with a stumble, a fumble, a reach),
And koala kept step, toe-by-toe, ‘cross the beach.

Through days of bright sunshine and nights of dark blue,
Koala’s ears held to the mermaid’s soft coo.
The octopus, shifty, inspected his shells
A horde he kept secret within silent swells.

But the tide did turn rough, and the octopus sighed,
His arms hardened, heavy; his spirits untied.
The mermaid, at once, brought her arm from the dark
And presented her OWN prize, an octopus mark.

His eyes became foggy, he smiled in shame,
And showed her his mermaid, (location the same).
The Koala, no longer being tired or lost
Enveloped them, tightly, permeating his frost.

In the final verse, finally, the mermaid embraced
The koala (contented) and set a clear pace
As the octopus, trailed, (her tail held in the blue)…
…A koala, a mermaid (and octopus too).

I’ve never felt the heft of nothingness
Quite like whatever means the loss of
Something necessary and the gracious
Idiocy that it wasn’t something else.
Ideation, creation, eradication, timogratulation,
And the tissue, hardened with chronic
Percussive altruism, pulsing aftershocks
Of moral compassion beating through
And being told “it’s best for you
Not to ask too many statements, or bat
Too many coattails.” You know, because
I’ve always said the first one in’s the
Last one anyone really wants there
Anyway.

In quiet corners of our shared retreat,
We trace the cracks upon our fragile hearts.
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

The leap we took, once wild and incomplete,
Now echoes in the chambers where love starts.
In quiet corners of our shared retreat.

The rain outside, a soft and rhythmic beat,
We listen, as our souls begin to chart.
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

Our words, like fragile glass, we gently treat,
For fear of shattering what’s left to impart.
In quiet corners of our shared retreat.

Yet hope persists, a stubborn, quiet feat,
As hands entwine, and healing love imparts.
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

So let us mend, with patience and repeat,
The frayed threads of our once-torn, fragile arts.
In quiet corners of our shared retreat,
The embers glow, a warmth we both still seek.

I watched you, three days,
Three, full, keep keep the
Whites of your eyes on me
To say I do not have my doubts,
But I have yours. And laid beside
Me while I melted into every afternoon
With frameless liquidity, and froze, a broken
Regulator.

I spent a soaking Saturday it’s true, and
To assuage your fears, they may seem
Flammable enough to blow, but there
Is nothing spectral about my tears.