In this dream she has a neon pink electric guitar and
Floats away backward into the dark;
The cord, the cable, the tether grows longer.
Neon dims, her figure wanes, not disappeared but smaller.
She strums but the tune is merely a name washed
Loud from my mouth.

Sound waves break; they chase after, float farther.
The name, once melody, rings hollow, ebbs silent.
Neon blinks out and I forget who I'm calling.
The memory, the tether, the cord at its longest
Goes slack; unplugged and lonesome, twists and drifts back;
Recoils from ink-black, starless, quiet.

the day folds over;
shadows flee the yard.
gold apollo's chariot,
our savior star
burns summer into shimmer street.
neighbor's home blisters, peels, bakes.
litters yellow flakes.

noon is noticed a few thousand times with
compound eyes and something
hops up into light,
throws its armored body,
its last insect idea
into the beak of a mockingbird.

the bird
gloats into a mimosa
singing a hungry prayer.
timid shadows return and
the mockingbird
peers from green stained-glass shade.

Words thrown about
Lost like skipping stones
I said
Love and cherish friendship and forever
Well I never well I never
Meant much at all
Except everything exceptional
Or all the words you never hear for all
The things you think you mean
Or how things aren't but ought to be

Gifted like a kiss from tidal lips
Over soft stones and moony hips
Laid dark on the wet sand
Her hair could be seaweed
Pushed pulled washed ashore
Left long and down on this beach

Limbs and roots from a seed
Birthing a nocturne tree
Sprung up and bathed to lie down in the dark.

Only love skips up
To cry
Or sooner dance around
In better light

When science sleeps in
Give fully and come as a friend would exhale
Asking of summer
Willed easy through that naked crib

New stories are lost within sight
Of the fading west
It will be a while
Before people talk

Standing in the desert
Remembering windshields
A white house and windmills
Pearls lose to dewdrops

In the dusk from the ruins
Retire the scholars' facts refuted

Beneath the sun's grimace

Fearful of such hush
Elders whisper
Recalling waterfalls
Proud nations
And snaky roads that choked green breath From growing grass

the general goings on of the sun-burnt neighborhood
the scorched-earth summerland fantasy

so many hoses on so many lawns
sprinkle suggestions that the world is leaking

huge asses wave and confirm with round authority
the existence of women out tending gardens

coaxing beauty from life shy to bud
coaxing color into roses

can they cure the bleach?
can the thirst be quenched?

even the grass can't grow in this
can't keep up with the mrs. joneses