O the Prayers

Return my giggles and kisses with the gift receipt
kept just for just such a moments as this
replace the books that littered our lives and bind them like new
Braid your hair to hide the passion of strands pulled and broken
Sooth the bite where my vampire love attempted to suck you dry
Plug your tear ducts, mop your checks – spread the
concealer quickly with brush and blush so the boss suspects nothing

Revise conflicted revelations
Apocalyptic and complete
Until they tell the story you want told

Hear the tear in the universe suck all the matter
All that mattered
Through to some alternate state
Where

Promises refold into blank notes
Phone conversations static into background radiation
Fingertip lesions heal unwritten curses

O the prayers spent on healing the dead
O the prayers spent

Let the breath of bottled water run flat
Let the dog bark like I am a stranger
Let necks unremember tender kisses

Leach my veins
Sever my arteries and bleed me into the gutter
Until my body no longer has the strength to remember

(an unpublished fragment)