When I write long songs I will create them out of others’ books of poetry, in this case from Refuge by Belle Waring

Tyler scuffs oak leaves to frisk fog of its warmth. No fog is this warm without sexual undertones. I wrought iron for you, my laughter a chain of its former mirth. What did we catch there in metal, our glands are hard like rot. But when we take the good salt, we lick one another without expectation. Take your pill, love, don’t justify yourself without it. I’m out of rust, here, I’m clean, my room is Pillsbury dough, when we made something with the gorge of plums. Tell me about what you smell when I cum.

You smell like castile soap, thin and still wracked with sobs. Oh, cliché, I thought I told you, dun horse, I want to eat you. I gave your words a blowjob, when you missed me, I can’t help but make distance wise, the time I ran the city without shoes, who brought me my sandals, my best friends miss church for you and me to marry, we wed our sins, we sing our cum from mouth to mouth. I’ll open my Pandora for you, sweet heart. Deep peace. Clean breach.

Breeze can hear claws scrape the walls of the pot. The pot asking the kettle for more thyme. Though we both know no one has thyme this season. It’s out of fashion. It’s me cooking myself a carrageenan-filled dextrosities.

The teachers churned into the nave of the church, like penguins, like gay razzles rattling. I want to bring my memory for you, front it, puff it up, my shirtsleeves are filled with the arms that long, round and long and wet and sandblasted.

The adults are getting desperate. They want adult entertainment, they want to watch.
That experimental chemo—I knew I couldn’t make a joke here. It was a close death, none of us could survive one another without trial. I want to show you my grief like a lost rock, the way I see it years later all smooth from the water you descried. The munchings of time. Plastic will survive all of us.

Seventy-five feet over the water, what stops you from jumping, bridge to the floor, at least you’re dying in nature, not inside some plastic bubble room, not inside the mind that refused to shut off, the work that I believe you are engaging, I saw two heterosexuals fucking across the street from my AA meeting at the Quaker meeting house, I wanted to play basket ball with their bodies, my face was red with sadnessing.

It was boss cook’s fault. He left my mother hungry, not my father, we all forget how to communicate with our families, I forget to tell my family that I am alive, that I’m round with want, that life has called itself my home, that the mountains are green and hazy, the sun is singing warmth and rain blesses water, the Clark Fork, the Bitterroots, the sage I saw in Idaho you can smell it raw after a hard rain.

The cops don’t care if he was in Nam. Narrowing my eyes I hate the war again. I like to tell negative emotions to curl up inside and allow themselves to create. I have never succeeded. I am always raw and healing, I am always a cut apple.

Shrapnel lives in Morton’s neck, so his head stays loping like a deer. The emu meat you gave me went stale in so much heat, tennis elbow you can’t cut it out hungry, your hunting mean and startling. Starling, swallow, Greek salad for me. I can’t get the smell of your cum out of my mouth, my jaw is a white-line for you, can I look up and attract your orgasm, attach it to my memory.

My father’s gone so I’ll break
the line, I’ll break the party into thirds, I’ll break my skull for you, I’ll let my father’s death be premeditated, when X talked about her father’s suicide I survived my own grief, when does sun break through the clouds, why do we call some things beautiful and toe others into petty.

Me and Marlene sit tight in her truck, waiting for the rain. I want to see that cigarette smoke curl into me, you and your cat make me miss all my dead ones. The feet I stand on are black with walking.