Particular Words in a Specific Order

            We fulminate 
for two-facedness, salaciousness, false grace in  
the wide space between tea leaves shared by lips  
and fortune, both soothsayers. There have been  
leviathans before us, a crowd gathered feasting 
on clouds slathered in aqua vitae, never before  
so well-mannered at the dinner table, keeping  
elbows lifted and spirits down, the theatre of a  
waltz styled in footsie with tails infinite and repast.

                        We fulminate 
            returning delivered milk bottles, and caught within? 
            Minor utterances of major thunderclouds, vaporous 
            skyturned maelstroms cleaved in a wind that howls 
            the way any choked malediction would. This is  
            the miniature revolution of a storm, churning  
            sideways and keeping foggy feet firmly flat on 
            the path Frost melted from: be calm water now; 
            between benthic gasps, grasp towards an inundation 
            of burning pitch on towering waves that is ultimate.

                                    We fulminate 
                        as the sky and sea, sun and moon, lightning in a 
                        bottle and the soft mouth that drinks from it.  
                        Teenage trees of pine core and silt leaf spring 
                        from northern nettle-nested soil, precursors to 
                        a cabin far more patient than we could ever be. 
                        Lightning erupts in muscle, behind gazes as 
                        vacant as they are entranced, electric fire under 
                        bare soles of a boy who runs off almost as easily  
                        as he falls in—          to the trap he sets for himself.

                        We fulminate  
            as we arc on tattered sheets, willfully fettered  
            to one another in a voltaic strategy designed by 
            exhaustive minds, executed by a sonorous grip, 
            not so deafening as caustic to the ears of our 
            others. Words as actions, delivering little respite 
            from the reality of the crushing movement of time, 
            softly argumentative. As lightning follows thunder,  
            thoughts follow bodies dancing amongst prospects  
            primeval in nature, age, and destructive capability.

                                    We fulminate 
                        in rotten deluge, feathered fists flailing against 
                        hearts (room-temperature), clawing at the mask 
                        of one another’s callousness to the quick of nail 
                        and biting to the nerve of tooth-strung snarl, the 
                        faint wail of judgement echoed to no savior in  
                        throaty jails when we are the bondsmen, the  
                        detainers, the retainers that keep it all contained  
                        in sealed split lips, hinted at through pale quips 
                        that open the lungs to breathe out fear dwelling there.

                        We fulminate 
            in the curiosity of contemplation. Oceanic eyes  
            weave inland to river’s wing, eroding honeycomb  
            layers placed as if they were not meant to be  
            removed, but they molt in chitinous reflection of the  
            growing vim which any emotion withholds from us  
            until the witching hour, when vinegar and wing of  
            bee and cypress blood bubble up and clot; gazing  
            back, the self-same stare shown as distant devotion, 
            or at least divine, though never mine: goddess opals.

            We fulminate 
by steeling ourselves to the loss we have yet to 
bear. As easily dredged as forgotten, the wounds 
that will carve across us have already healed, or 
cannot reopen the self-inflicted conflictions we’ve 
lacerated upon heaving backs and melted necks. 
It is loan repayment, slaying the dragon of debt 
daily by facing, refacing, and defacing the lurking 
burden of what will eventually undo itself. It is already  
dead, this perennial parting, though it looms still.