first date idleness

The curve of lips
curving, curling
folded like cloth,
a stack of linens
a swan sitting
on a dinner plate

perhaps pressed
against a mouth
to dab away red,
pressed against
a neck, pushed into
a blouse, lipstick
staining, fresh

the curve of lips

burdened

She watches him speak

Twenty is such a hollow number, barren and earthbound

imagine surrender; running in the night from blindness

falling like a tree in an empty room silently sobbing

damp soil beneath worn boots on a manufactured forest floor

the bones in his mouth  grinding profanities when he cannot sleep

in a stranger's house he still hears the fighting, voices raised, fists

where a spine should be; crumbling

the idea of place called home

She watches him speak

The same lips loved by a twelve year old girl

now quiver with the sorrows of a boy who has kept too quiet 

wishing to fasten his buckling knees- biting down

petalled mouth bleeding, skinnied and sun-burnt and cliff-edged; 

spine shot straight, eyes still

wandering like a child who has walked the earth alone

a soldier by the side of a river waiting for the forest to burn

She watches him -

he is a pool of something viscous, crawling from battle

hands over discarded rings; 

imagine surrender.