These are the sunset ones, she said. Demurring. They stain–

Our lips, she clarified.

“I said goodbye to Bessie the summer I turned twelve.”

“Yes. Twenty . . . twenty minutes. Neck and upper back.” I point over my shoulder to the areas I need massaged.

“This was the Friday Malcolm got to put Christmas away for another year.”

“My sockets slick with sympathy. Your rage
a specter, sentient without pity.”

“When the heat subsided, the frogs rained down like a bill come due.”

“Oh, rolling hills of Erin

With your hearts a tearin'“

“I could barely see through the grimy film
So tired…I closed my eyes
And lay on my side to rest for a while.”

“I turn away, back towards the forest. I don’t let go

of the knife in my pocket, not even for a single second. “

"What is it......like?" they'd ask. "On the lighthouse?"
"No corners," he'd reply.

“In the wind, in the sleet, in the drizzletty rain
Flutters the soul that the sun spurs to pain”

“I do have boundaries.
I am enclosed, but porous. Permeable”

“I knew only that she saw, and only I could erase”

“The door to September is opening.”

“I wondered about our creations with the beasts sitting there
and the clouds crowded in from the west.”

“my cabin is home for you,
lover and muse, holding my trust
until I return, as I must.”

“1. Go outside”

“Just ate my last chicken tender for the next six months.”

“Asleep in the sawdust flakes,
he was round as a planet”

“Can I interest you in some pie?”