This is Goodbye, Then?

In the halfway house, I met you

My mind swallowing particular phrases,

Your beliefs weaving their way back

Into consciousness, mine at the fall. 



Some people said that we lost our way

In the conviction of chalk-bone eyes and

With our Father, Son, and Holy Ghost hearts 

Crossed, delighting in dirty water. 



There was a way in which you said,

The things that jumbled across

My folding table of skin and bones and tricks,

Mouthing a smoke alarm of substance. 



What I said, before I saw your body

Turn to plots of dirt and cloudless sky,

I meant it then, when I felt your touch, 

Laughing underneath a halved moon 

​

Night sprawled into day, crickets

Rubbed their wings and your eyes

Saw something dead in mine

Come back alive.    I mean it now, 

​

Cross-eyed like the lone cat,

That came to call at my doorsteps,

The night that I left,

Feeling yellow with nostalgia and fever.