I know the way the heart spells wrecked
spills itself top-heavy with care
and maroons away scrapped and stapled together
skirting the accordion music of forgiveness
tossed to the curb with no forwarding address
I know the way the heart dwells and hides
tucks itself away in cornfields of regret
near enough to what it wants
but far enough away to never have
what it wants
I know chances the heart mistakes and breaks
forfeits and chucks away
and sometimes even
holds on to
too
I know the wide sky of stormy luck
that’s chopped with clouds
unfurling like tea-stained napkins on a lapis lazuli tablecloth
and how it spurns loss and spins aching heads
I know choices crazed with whisky eyes
I know spasms of revolt clasped to long-gone moments
I know the heedless casts of hope’s threadbare lines
into the rough waters of badly timed sorrow
I know the way the heart sticks
and picks the thorns from what it wants
and plucks along with too long afternoons
through thousands of gray rainless days
I know the heart’s dry wells of misses
and its desperate greedy swallows
and its listless cuts
that splice today into tomorrow
already half lost and never found
I know the skips of nearly there
that ricochet off desertion’s blue face
only to drop and backpedal
and whisper longing through even bluer nights
impatient and fasting through faraway weather
I know the heart does what it can
while peeling away shiny layers of try
only to end up restless
vulturing its own demise
stuffed with mildewed apple cores and crumbled corks
stubbing the callused toes of useless frets
through ceiling-staring nights
through the tightening of shoelace belts
through stringless symphonies
through the strains
of
waiting waiting waiting waiting
for
never
enough
of
more
not like leaping headfirst into the lamplight
not like that
at
all
my heart’s
pinball machine is tilting towards your dreaminess
so flipper that replay to life
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