Olive

you mountain and valley, cave dark intriguing
singing with the strum of childhood disappointments
with fingers rough as oyster shells, draping
but softening for a season while mine harden
inside my shell built of verses gilded, welded
to routine and bucking tradition, vomited
unwillingly and with conceit. your silence
my skin itches with the lice of worry
while my friends divorce and marry
martyr and bury years of repose
the treadmill before screens of disgust
a public distrust of pancake make-up art.
you drown in vodka loosely measured
while the house falls down, cozy
around our bed. lost is an unfamiliar place.
for me the mausoleum past holds no beauty
I move on and on, a note echoing until death
a wave crashing unforgotten and unique
yet familiar, your name, your palm, your vague reflection
thrown from the murk of the pond you’ve pissed in
but not disdained, not hated, not overlooked
not disregarded, only nestled and embraced
your poem and sunshine, your novel and beast.
you yodel and echolocation, midnight breathing
breaking with the puerile pout of no and never
with palms cut and coded, composed.

[Published online at The Belleville Park Pages, December 2014]