no one could see

i carry you around more than i’d care to admit.
a shadow to keep me. a shadow to ride.
to touch with shallow hands, these are the hands that lied.

my keeper, my grace. my mother save face -
i want you to slow down. i want you to look around
as your home washes away in the night tide,
because this is the sound of walking alone.
the streets have turned into hallways, tiled corridors,
bland smears of hospital walls, stars dangling
from strips of wire, a sun for every four doors.
follow the echo of heels, the fire in the throat
of a god i could not hold, but i’m learning to define him -
to find him like i could never find you.

(but what you have reaps its hold in me)

you're in the emergency ward looking for ways to leave,
wild with the waves, the way the waters weave a canvas
of spilled tapestry. my mother, the spinster of moods,
see how it broods: this angel of death. how it reaks.
it's over now. the morphine flows. the shoulders slump.
sockets sunk in the ivory light, the white heat.
sweet dreams, the respirator breathes
and i follow the veins, the tubes, the rivers of moon,
how it looms away the hurt. and you're so far away

you're so far away from us
but you'll come back, won't you?
somehow you always do.