This is how it should be done
with twenty-seven minute phone calls,
words and meaning completely.
With forty-two minutes on the asphalt
and with it being enough.
But what good is can’t when want
strings together words, which should
never be spelled out for anyone else,
to anyone who matters. When routine
gives way to agitation. To selfish
giving and taking what’s yours.
This is how it should be done
with words to some other nape,
shifting focus and no remorse.
With lies and with lying
down. With things being mutual.

Some idiot
Left a box of matches
On an ovoid charcoal barbeque.
I stole it.
I wandered, flicking them
Crimson and dropping them,
But the color was
Empty in the bodily sun.
Every seven steps there was the plink
Of balsa sticks on sandstone and asphalt
And other kinds of pavement,
And people were watching.
It was a box of matches. A box
That read STRIKE EVERYWHERE.
That was agreeable as I walked.
I didn’t bother to blow out
Each flame
Because I figured
The rush of flight was enough
To end the burn.
One of them, thrown off rightways
Landed and held itself in the
Splitting of a twig—a flowered shrub
No …