Your Vocal Chords Taste Just Like Sugar

a tarp of green covers the air that we have made
our own, when we are inside we stare at the mud
and sticks and we turn our backs and smile, still
staring.

it doesn't matter where our eyes grace, whether it
is the brown above us or the stark grey air, cool
like fog and so thick that we have leave to hang
our new presumptions upon it - so far we have not
hung anything but i know in both your pocket
and in mine there are things to be hung.

there is sugar all over the air and somehow it
eliminates the space between the places we must be -
you have sugar all over your skin and i feared that
in the heat you might feel inclined to go the water
and then to melt away but still i can feel it when
i place my tongue in the air - the small pieces
of sugar like sand.

this sad stillness in the air has become plain again,
it is not my way but if it was i would feel
lucky that you should act like it is yours - there is
so much sugar in the air that i feel it may melt
into dirt again, so much sugar in the air that i am
calm again under this tarp of dirt and green.

sugar twisting around branches, around air wrapped
around bodies, limbs, faces, around air that is
waiting to be hung with new grains, large impositions.

Sad Day Before Sunday

like sugar between flour,
what are we here for?

(distressed, deranged,
dismembered -
shredded).

sad silences sing softly,
hanging in the air,

the sun has cut your hallowed skin,
the sun has kept mine cold;
the sun has heated all your skin,
the sun has kept mine cold;
the sun has kept my skin stark white,
the sun has kept you cold.

sad silences sing secrets onto fingers,
sad silences sing whispers
onto tabletops.

You and Your Back Roads

you love the arrows at the bottom of the page - fool.
shooting arrows down country roads and watching them fly,
watching them skim your face.
pull back, prepare, release.
you have country roads across your lips
and I can see them wind all over -
you drink beer while driving on country roads,
you speed you car on dirt on country roads,
you let me drive down country roads
and tell me I am terrible.

lean back in your chair love
for soon I will leave you and soon
I will be back again.

feel the dirt fly up in tires,
see the cows,
stack the hay,
don't stop at corners.
large generalizations love -
your lips,
your roads,
your eyes again.
let's roll in the dirt and lie in country fields.

I will be home when the first snow falls,
my country, country love.