black-eyed (edited)

your new name hangs off the end
of your pressurized coal like a dragging pipe,
spewing smoke and sparks and shapeless noise like the ambience
in the street, and you
could start a parade if you only drove a little slower.

your new last name sounds like a freshly
dried candle, hanging from a rail still tied to
its twin, rolling in the sun like dogs in the dirt.
the waiting wicks tremble in the breeze safely, like
this soft air won’t ever feed immolation, but if fate
is anything to a finite burn, it’s never right where you are.

these witch wicks might have cast love spells
into the past on two blacking pairs of eyes that could
have fallen into any bed, staring through any hazy window.
maybe the heat of that summer night mixed with
the booze in your blood made you unaware of the dancing
candles and their incessant chanting, just
the murky molecules bouncing from one another droning the drums
in your ears. you wanted no code-break, no task of celestial cipher,
all you needed was to lose yet another piece
of your ringed self.

when black eyes burn white and the afternoon pants
like an alarm, sweaty feet hit a floor only cold because it’s hard.
a body only warm because it’s soft depresses the bed and
you figure this is what they all deserve as you turn a naked back
to lidded eyes. you know they just can’t
be the black you recall so you question the clothes at the foot of the bed.

his whole life in your hands now, you mouth the words
of candlemakers and playground taunts. blue eyes roll around
a skull like there’s room for two, but the ruse fades fast and you
hustle the hustle out.

he could fly jets with that stick between his legs and he will call
your signs and raise your directions. there always has to be a haze before
anything becomes clear, otherwise we’d all know the answers
and no one would need to discuss it with empty clothes, the mockery
of human form. and just like last night,
to get out, you have to be in.

your new last name is no weekend tent or thunderstorm umbrella,
it’s surgical and unconscious, taking the pros years to install
it into your life, replacements. it’s an even bigger plain over a cresting hill, full of
more wax and cotton than you knew was needed for such and ancient art. papa
will pay for the art of braids, they lay
one over the other and these humid strands are finally given shape and function,
to hold another as it
holds back, as clear as the clear as the cleanse, and without which not.