Particular Words in a Specific Order

The figurine reminds me 
of a sleepy-eyed man whom 

you cannot quite focus on 
because he is blurry and 

does not look right at you 
as he speaks to you. It is 

the claw marks we leave 
on our favorite glass that 

irk me deeply, as if there 
is unknown power in us 

or we are not so much 
kindly giants as wraiths 

who cannot help but scar 
anything worth keeping in 

one piece. Drink, drink he 
says, as if there is a cure 

for thirst and he is the one 
responsible for it anyhow. 

Scales are jagged ice in 
my wine, fish soup for 

the drunk or drinking. 
There is howling in a 

brass pipe below the 
surface, as if an organ 

besides the heart pumps 
music through the both 

of us. I dreamt my legs 
were a goat’s and I played 

the flute as you danced 
for an unfaced flame, 

though I could not tell if 
you were a nymph or the 

goddess that we were all 
worshipping. We slept before 

the fire after we lit pipes 
cradling sleep dealer dust; 

I asked, is it alright? and 
you thought I meant the 

taste, not the danger. There 
are jokes we tell our children 

but our parents would never 
understand, and that is why 

I am as heated as any mark 
left on me, as righteous as 

any face I wear, as bound 
to be as any song that pilots me, 

and how easy it all heals or is 
taken off the next day 

Mornings are either obscuring 
fog or engulfing smoke, but there 

has never been an eye that could 
tell the difference, nor a nose that 

could not. I do not know what 
morning smells like in your room, 
though I imagine it is worth it.

2019