paving the road to hell

when anger sewn

detached

vapid wishes drift…

On translucent pins
________ knitted from scales
I tread lightly

trees dream of touching

Burr oaks and sugar maples
ancient, barrel-chested sentries
staunchly line

Emptiness crowds

into crevices once

overflowing with you —

The silent moth unbidden flies

from the cornered shadows

of my bedroom

Stricken by catastrophe
impoverished, our hearts
hunger, though small

imaginations flounder

The gilded heart of a poet
historically rife with
treacherous romantic
notions spilling blood
colored secrets onto pages

I found her
in the folding and unfolding
of a fitted sheet