1 New Poem

Unpacked Rooms

You come in all warming,
crop dust creeping of
Northern night skies, dipping gold
and lemonade stand due,
against chalkboard careen:
dusty old thoughts,
snowblind to legal tender,
foot in front of face.

You come in like that,
low grade bed fever,
trailing illusions as footprints
in cast iron.

You stay like sour tongue dance,
windscreen fluttering cool
promise of tinderbox evening
against bleach-wash finery of this
slacking skin, trapped between
scaled breathing (saxophone
chord) and half-hearted speech
scribbled on timely threshold.

You stay like this,
flicking brilliant ashes off
into bold blue navy air,
whispering burnout.

You leave like let boarding
beds, toothpaste cap and all
from nightstand, mud shoe
tracking places on linoleum,
view of paint finish from
cross-swinging door lock.

You leave like that,

wrapped-up as trite
anecdote, two sentence
denial of things.