Outfit swapping during the annual Christmas bash — Mike woke up to the smell of rotting pizza. A sheet of cold air hung above his body and crept through an opening in his shirt. He noticed two buttons were undone. Fingering the shirt, he noticed that it didn’t feel right. It was scratchy and formal. But there were…

A promise not to let myself go — Why should a man give up the treasures of self-hood and pleasure when anything less than that has the scent of death? I tried to hate my life and care more for someone else’s glory, but all the while I watched myself sink slowly into a pool of inky regret, and, paralyzed by anger at those who preached and these big ears that listened hard, I couldn’t do a thing. A man should recognize his old self and, loving him, pull him out slowly, eye to eye…

Branson ran into the sanctuary one humid night and kneeling at the olive-wood cross smacked his face into an open Bible, ink mingling with sweat. He peeled the pages off his skin and gazed toward the black ceiling with lights burning low in deep contrition. O Lord, he said, I’ve sinned again, and this one’s worse than when he bled. Old Branson beat his breast and prayed, hoping for release. He thought to himself — a blue and black suit with shaking flesh inside — forgiveness is for the sick at heart, right, God? Right. And so Branson sauntered home and forgetting about the cleansing and the new-birth and all that other glaring stuff he went on beating his son.

There’s a secret in the rain, that when it falls it feels like thumbtacks on my skin. There’s a whisper in the way you walk; at times I’ve listened quiet at the metal gate. The secret in the skies is that when they break apart and fall I plant my knees in the mud and watch you through a fogged-up windowpane. There’s a secret in your mittened hands, that after being swallowed by the oven they pull out a meal I’ve never tasted. There’s a tragic scene before me, and the dirt beneath my fingernails shows I’ve clawed my way into your home, but looking up I feel nothing but frozen iron bullets on my face. There’s an answer in the howling wind, the booming thunder — let this be the voice of God; I pray, I cry, I wonder.

You carry me through self-hatred and anger, brown-eyed beauty. You always search for the greater good. If any will suffer, no, you won’t have it, soft creature formed from the mind of God — forever finding flaws in yourself yet worlds of wonder in others, like I do. Sweet, untraced complexity — woman I can’t properly love. I adore you like the stars above Elwood Orchards or the hot-iron sunrise of Watatic’s vast horizon. You correct me when I’m wrong like a master monk flaying a stubborn disciple — Bright light New Hampshire skin, strong and vital in the spring of youth, you see past my morning scowl and claw at my cynic’s heart; cooking savory dinners, getting sexy in the shower. Enter this cold room as my companion — inject life until this body slows and death asserts its primal place.

Maple autumn leaf — deep vermilion burning in tandem with thousands of bright kin. New Hampshire barn — eager boy dismembers branches on trees that wait to sleep. Eyes wide, neck stretched — he wonders what’s inside a floating crimson October leaf falling gently to the ground. A settlement, perhaps — a city of of mite-sized people who paint the skies red in honor of their death. They work with speed — with all they have until their canvas dries and shatters like glass.

At the moment of death — They’ve pulled the cord from its socket so tomorrow is no longer certain. Sure, I’ve been here before, but the darkness is eerily foreign to me, and, anyhow, I don’t think I believe it. Curtains closing, credits rolling, here I go, into the land of forgotten dreams, where all eyes remain closed to future possibilities.

Man’s heart is a sieve and it’s an evil thing, the way they sharpen their knives in the public square — there in the dark of mind behind raised fists and blazing eyes, see a wanting — Fame, Admiration, Victory over opposing forces like the way Truman’s stomach felt in August ’45. They preach ideals of the dead, men they’ve never read and scrawl manifestos on the stems of Spring flowers — budding flowers needing peace and Love, not a gaping chasm in the soul, and in the rallies and the riots the heart gains Nothing and the limping fighter slinks into bed with crusted blood stopping the nostrils and wonders if Death will take her if she fails to keep her mouth open.

A villanelle — There he sat, sinking into the TV; old man wasting, and on the end table sat a lonely little box of ribbon candy. All his life, culminating in this scene — ninety-six years and now he’s up to bat, there he sat, gazing into the TV. What trophy could we…