Isn't That a Cold Peace

death
has put his hand on my shoulder
to calm me
and i am.
i just wonder
if i am an aside,
and for how long
his travels have brought him

Where the Dust Settles

While he sits, he notices the cabin does not work well in all it does.  Its seal, if ever intact, is long broken.  The little house breaths with the outside.  The east window leaks, sweating cold into his refuge.  A slow creep of moisture steals between the panes.  But the place is not broken.  It's got cracked skin and a rickety heart, like lots of the old things we love.

The Good We Can Sense (Slam Revision)

Middle school hung a steel box from the bottom of my sister's chin,
so that she'd feel rejection twist and drift from her bones
every time that motherfucker swings.

The door to the box is itself littered
with the postmark of passing rejections
the graffitii of young gangs that roam these hallways
and tag what they can with the swift tongue scribble whips
of the hate they learned from their elders