You have choices, all kinds of arson to commit.
I mean, you’ve gotta burn the old for the new to grow,
and I want to help you:
I practice, flicking lighters,
dropping lit matches out windows.

You might say you hate everyone but you never meant
ignite a witch in a bonfire. You never
meant swaddle her in rags
and drop her in the river; never meant
pack her in a suitcase, check her in like baggage.

I want to say that I knelt alone at the window all winter
as the plenilune sky stained the snow
Chartres Blue. But really, if the winter ever came this winter
I spent it sprawled out on my couch getting drunk,
watching football, while she gifted you
granite hills veiled white.

She was—is—sure as a sure thing gets and I’m proverbial,
always a bridesmaid. Bride feels impossible.
Like trying to exorcise the moon from the sky.
Like trying to write about the moon without using the word moon
in any language.

I’m clone-costumed and dyed-to-match
and she’s slim and white and diamond
and I say she’s a cunt to the back of your head
to get a reaction and you’ve got her

got arson on your blue, blue mind
and she’s a blue thing short of a wedding
and I’m in a car driving over a bridge known for suicides
and Van Halen’s “Jump” is playing on the radio.

 

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 2.

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