These Days

Stalled, choking on the dust, I can
taste it on my teeth and only the birds
stop and stare.

Eyeing my flesh as a babe eyes its
mother, to forever metabolize this maternal
pulse.

Life moves forward around us while I scream
for her, stasis and silence becomes my quilted
nightmare of dawn.

Still, the separation and segregation of my blood
can stand, on its own and on its bone
it stands.

Knuckle deep in pools of cool sadness,
the liquid could eat the sun, but it grounds itself
to this world.

As convention permits, I perceive all of this
as an omen, a song of sinful glee and
buckled knees.

As style demands, I confine this portent to
caves of ink and narcissism, we aren't so together
after all.