Lately it is consuming.

A sleep that falls hard and

slams flat into the slates of

shuttered eyelids,

they hide the choking cry

of these brief alien nights.

The onset of decay, the first leaves flee

tread lightly

and shiver, fluttering sweet to land

and lie flat, static along

those cool tiles

The only reprieve

from a summer that bleeds us out

Dry

and empties its energy like thick sewage

onto our slicked skin.

The sweat is the only reminder

we are still alive.

And dark was the night in the

suburbs, when we slid naked

through the shadows down

the stairs and inhaled the ashes

from one another's chests,

Your eyes of fire do not see into me

deep as the autumn

when you go there, go,

but I will let it go.

Tense measurements of time that

barrel into such splintered bones.

If i was pure, i would hold it close

to my chest and run with it

But I am not, I am afraid. I

will lie alone tonight and in my mind

dance

You dance

dead and hot and old and droning on

in summer,

summer of nothing, of a near birth

that shrivels in memory

out to sea tossing and wild

This cresting ache.

I have the metabolism of a bull.

My eyes harden like horns

and sharpen, then fade when

the exhaust pipe pops

and shrieks in protest of the temperature.

I put my shoes on

and trembled for the first time

my memory could touch,

but you did not come.

The walls shook

and the storm invaded

and dissipated with the sound.