the splintered deck
was still hot to the touch
when the rain began
making its
little patterns upon the wood;
like warring battleships, the clouds, they
argued loudly across a dinner table of
water vapor:
something about the upcoming election;
and the lightning relished in the midst of the din,
joining the rain in some sort of
blurry
dance
while i swung
with the metal chains held
tight
in my hands;
i had always been a summer child.

with his fingers
hammering
the keys of his grandmother’s steinway
and the pedals crashing
     up and down
and his hair wild with music;
the whole room was filled with sound,
beautiful, pure sound
sound that made you angry and speechless and
calm and confused,
sound was floating in between his lips
with the dust of forty years
unsettled from their graves in the
old linen curtains:
an open window hid in the corner
where the birds all perched,
their feathers still
and eyes furious with envy

every
footstep
was
perfectly in time
with the steady heartbeat
of the militant revolution
in the sky,
and
not even the world’s
strongest
    largest
         most powerful
armies could stop the late leaves
       nor the freshly shattered
          chambers of december’s cold heart
                      from
    falling
and the fighting continued
          in a long, drawn-out,
                     death:

slow-motion style
           over an
                                 unwavering horizon. 

all the freckles in the sky
shining through the window
at the
top
of the stairs;
your thoughts wading, soaking in the
        deep rivers- flowing,
                               falling,
                                 circling,
                    rivers-
             of your, eyes;
and your, back
                             pressed
against the white, white wall
which held you up
                             when everything else
             fell down

you
with your
indecorous elegance.
you,
you’re a disgrace
with your acidic voice
and swift, unstoppable movements
that echo against a wall,
amplified,
contoured,
across a black and white photograph
you’d published across your mouth,
an invitation.
oh, another
starless midnight? and
spiteful, sex-bruised neck;
you whore
with your ambiguous eyes

the way the sun was striking the,
flashing metal glints of
the
  trains
there was a blinding
epiphany
of light and sound
and the tracks were great, steel veins;
how they,
curve,
and twist elegantly:
       not unlike that of a flowering vine,
                        or the thin, naked spine
of the radiant woman who stole the thunder
from the mid-august storms,
   the,
             glowing dusky warm, warm, warm skies-
skies that hover,
  hover around the station,
mixing with engine ssssssteam.