fond of the frond of a palm in the pond

"

and we whispered the sums of all we thought we were and what brought us to such conclusions. the universal cogwork, construction of vowels and values. amateur philosophies shared, rumors thick, and, god, the gasping for air after laughing too hard. God? it felt like spinning lying in the midnight lot in front of the pet grooming shop, beside the starbucks, across the street from a place that only sold sno-cones. and we revolved around the axis in quiet breaths that traced the orange from the streetlight. just all of us.

and i thought of the man they met in white by the side of

the road. they helped him with his car and he said God

bless and the wife's mother left the hospital healthy

and they swore

that man was a god-send. or maybe im confusing this with

lullabye, the palahniuk book about death found in a

children's poem book. he killed his son and his wife

before he knew what he whispered to them in their sleep

we whispered

and sunk our backs into the blacktoppppp oh god,

i wasn't there. i thought

and i swore

that man was going to be taken away.

on most sunday mornings is when i notice the birds outside screaming at each other. and he told us that that's what he missed the most about home. and it made him so happy to just hear them when he woke up. and there's a ten minute home movie, dizzying zooms into the branches trying to find them. and all you could hear is the goddamn chirping.

exodus-odetta& thieves. i knew it

at that moment

it struck me

where and when

just going nowhere, in file, in place--

there was no end to this. and i was too afraid to lose, to forget and be a part not apart. there really isn't an end to this. the cancer that is swallowing us both and taking fourty with it. and without it would be an even more silent cancer, a ruptured vein of faith and family. a fist through a wall, hidden. the immaculate disguising the ugly scar of what's left of yesterday. but we'll only be with you. and then maybe, maybe like sand in an oven, maybe like drowning in two inches of water, maybe like peter and heloise, maybe there'd be something finite

with the reasoning of the early morning turned windy, we drove home.

"