Cold Case

The kindness of strange
Your ashtray pillow face
Replying with broken capillaries
Cavity veins
Exploding in tan circus palette
Decorated beautifully
With details from Greece
and Turkey
and Armenia
The silver just glazing
Arms yellowed and purpled
Cuffed with things that clink
The matted fur around your neck
All across your coat
Matching your snubbed eyelids
Smoky recesses
Starving dust bowls
Crow feathers sticking straight up
Slick as ever
Greased and tarred
More like ribs now
Thick and quadrupedal
Slabs splayed
Weighed down every few seconds
By nature
Some gruff tick
That hot-wired your grunt
Connecting clock to smooth tissue
Leaving you with boots
for snow
And keys
to let yourself back in
--
2.24.10