yorkleaving

eightfortyfive goodbye wave, outside,
glancedback tearineye smile; watcher
at window lifted fingers in response: last
of them, but for him. nother non
company kept, nineohfive laughing
sighed: goodbye. me-and-he then, to-
get-
her came tenfifteen some mo(u)rning
yearagone, leavetaking now: different.
first ninetwenty failcatch train, afraid,
on purpose. person one, persons
two, personal, wordless. foodfed yet
full—killclock, sinkingpit stomach. wit’s
end. fourthirteenseventhirtytwoohonepast-
midnight when everything placefallen
into: sad, so soon after. tenohtwo train
on, he fell sleepdead, i awake. uppicked by
one unbegun: envy, undersurf. yorkleaving
difficult, insecure, broken. spokenwords fail.

Houses of Decay

Fray, seen plainly in the facial lay:
a stray whisker here, an unlovely lump there:
fabled fortunes falling freely, and away
and downward is pulled the face,
loose flaps of skin sinking
limply toward the chin:

o unhealthy epiderm!
o weaver of Fate! champion of Faith!

Mine, his and all: we’ll all fall
eventually, our faces failing and then the traces of us,
disentigrating (down, down, down), done in by dozens
of dramas and doleful dirges drowning us in ugly afterthoughts.

O, if only, (birth until death); o,
if once, if never, but no and no
and (o,
f
o
r
e
v
e
r) no.