surlian

an eggshell scraped out and felt with careful fingertips softly, breathing carefully, feeling that infinite surface -- we don't have this -- that hollow, it reaches out and kisses our foreheads, it pets our hair and, knowing, hums all the shards of animals inside us to sleep

We go: Winter, spring, summer, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, just Breathing. I have Stopped asking After your health. This is for you, then, mask-keeper, This is for you, arranger of words, Who couldn't call yourself a man Without too much conviction. Afterwards I could see -- On those wood seats With their sticky veneer, I could see The tape all twining in your fingers. I could see you look for the right words, Picking frantically, finding only All the husked dry bodies Of the midnight lake bugs. This is for you, then, mask-keeper. This is for you, devout of the drink: Under the filming smell of Soured s