ellipses, self-sketch

that same self-search for a home
i can never live that way
or can't any longer.
a yearning for the negative
spaces. me, the same self-notion.
ambit of shuffle board table and cheap beer,
photobooth, dart board round and corky.
tower of salt, granite pillar
tap tap of the mourning keg
black walnuts flapjacked into the sidewalk
amniotic, abiotic influences
i would be happy with three things
shuck, husk,
lusty overdraw
green-yellow, a sulfuric
amour thirst deep
in my belly
i want to but
had we not kicked
away the dirt, sunk our fingernails deep
we would have never known

mourning sonata beginning
to give rise
to flocks of birds
gathering in the bare tree tops,
the telephone wires
the agonizing beauty
of a moment, how this
too will slip softly through
our fingers no
matter how tightly we grasp
for consequence, meaning,
some daily bread other
than the embedded self-knowledge,
somnambulant tendencies
to hurl oneself out a window

ankle-deep in kitchen liquor
bottles, residue of
evidence to and for love
sex eyes, apricot tea, we lost
two children, bifurcation, but
look how much we drank
what more could i ask for
heart-to-heart
paludification. hallowed
be thy