ten years spent in
light blue rooms with the
vague forms of women always
walking out the door

with this image of children in
barren villages
burning the american flag and
dancing on the graves of crack babies
always hovering at the
edge of my sight

maybe the taste of a stranger’s
pale luminous skin
when the phone rings at three
in the morning and a voice
that i can’t immediately place says
[i]i left him[/i]

says
[i]i love you[/i]
and it’s always at a point
where one season is giving way
to the next

where the boyfriend
has been arrested and the
daughter is screaming and the
president says that the first bombs
have been dropped

explains how the deaths of our enemies
are all victories for freedom
and i am hungover on the morning
of the abortion

i move slowly through the lines of protesters
with my hands balled into fists

with the phone number of
an old lover tucked into my wallet
and i am thinking of
her laugh

i am drinking someone’s blood

there is no chance for
any of us to
walk away from this unscarred

Listed at Duotrope
Listed with Poets & Writers
CLMP Member
List with Art Deadline
Follow us on MagCloud