Lana woke me by the lake
from a thousand miles away,
courting—begging for LA
when all I wanted was to know
that my eyes were not profound liars.
The reeds and briars sharpened
beneath my tears and blinked-back fog;
Damn the black dogs
and the mourning—do I let
such horning hell carve out my insides?
I found myself awash in leeches,
fondant endives from the store;
you know it—from before,
when I drove but never left home,
looked up but never twirled the stars
above this dome where everything is still.
I’ve had my fill of emptied nothing.
This concave parody of loving—
his tongue is warm, but his teeth
are sharp.
Lucifer may dress in drag
and stolen harps, but I know a bastard
when I see him. No longer dreaming.
Pray no bubbles start to form,
that dying pressure won’t deform my arteries.
I brush the brimstone from my knees—to Hell
with drinking bees in closet corners
as my throat takes their pulsing stings,
as I let decent everythings slide off of me.
Rid me of oil-slicked apathy, this pearly numbness on my skin;
I am finished with ending my beginnings
and clinching middles.
I take up her anthem on my winner’s fiddle.
Tilt burns the balconies; in their ashes brittle,
I begin.
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