The Kiss Was a Key

A man so grudging what he
asked of life was that
every win be a loss. He
kept with his reports
endlessly.

“I never touch it.’
he said in regards to
every drink every
offered.

Standing in front of a
glass case his hands
were in his coat
pockets hiding from
the world like him.

She would not leave. She
who stood there even
after he turned down her
offer. Strange words
strangled in his throat,
a taste of blood and
metal.

“You can’t stay here.”
Were the words he choked
out while still control
was his. Surely those
words would chase her
out of his office.

He took something out of
a file and read parts of
it into a recorder. His
mind no longer on the
reports. Things were
taking him in a direction
he did not want to go.

His face hung there in
that moment. Eyes blazing
green light. Would she
know the books if she saw
him hold them just now?

Her bronze eyes under the
sickle moon behind her
seemed to say- yes.

Yes, he was not without a
certain charm and there
was the simple straw
pallet nearby for the
patients to rest- not
now occupied.

“I’d love some tea,”
she said out loud with
conviction. She pictured
him naked, right knee
flexed, holding her body
a few inches off the straw,
his penis exposed.

Suddenly she was in front
of his mouth and nose. A
taste of blue sparks. A
kiss opening a door to
something he’d never
known or seen.

Strangers Smile at Stones Like Setting Suns

Flowers, those strange
and often dead friends
of spring
and romance
looked out from whatever
balconies nature
might provide onto
so many emerald valleys
thoughts slung
out into the woods
then tripping downward
in seclusion.

Hearts as light as
his oaken name
which seemed deepened
by his father’s passing.
His broken words echoed
in that instant. Hearing
them as if in sleep
lumbering. His mind ceased
swiftly at her demand as she
ascended the interior corridors,
so slowly the impression
she left reminded
him of which walls
could chain him.

He thought of her love
as priceless
therefore the guardians
never slept on their watch.
She closed the largest of
her little fingers around his
heart and with an unknown
smile given she seemed
to beckon with a rustle
as he was hanging secretly
in a resting-place.

It had been a killing thing,
surprised ruinous
generations lost in
those marble sheets.

A stranger remembered
and smiled at the stones
which he misunderstood,
and took for an ominous
sign.  Something at a turn
in the passage ahead
looked upward.
He turned and looked
over his shoulder
noiselessly,
all the sounds were empty.

She knew the many calculations
of the knife,
its full blade about
to be stepped
up from the point.

Out in the hallway walked swords.
Her eyelashes had mastered every
meaning, and none suspected a
war was going on below them.
A simple study of storms and
seven hats
turned to dust and
forming, a village of strangers
and smiling Saints which would be
made smooth by the centuries.