Burning Mint

Hot mint breath plumes
across these vaulted ceilings -

and I have never been to New England,
but I can picture the autumn frost;
feel the fiery flush to my cheeks when
a make-believe father burns the dead leaves
in the street.

Where the burning mint
turns cinnamon,

and then sour.

Ornate! Or poetically gothic -

she says ‘give me more’ of this strange life.
This strange light that lingers like
sound, moving across the hollow winter
scaffoldings. While the sun sighs lazily
underneath the window glass.

And my hands falter, part the strength
of a solid body. Break rib configuration
with my teeth to surrender to the hunger.

A feast of mint.
My mind puffing at the clot of thoughts
where a lone man fires a fat gun into
the face of time.

I am simply a symbiotic rhyme.

But I have tired New England, to crawl
to your effervescent shores - run from
the Pacific, from my islands to your
burning neon light. Light so unforgettable
that it tattoos itself on my heart like a flame,
stinging, I gulp from burning cups of mint
but the taste always stings me, a scar pulsating
for the memory of this never experienced place.

I have to face consequence.

Fold my hands together tightly, pray -
but what more am I left with but the
things that I pretend to say?

Like so much love, and not enough loving.

The burning mint boils, fills the room
with copper, but it is not strong enough
to stop her.

The sky here mewls, shifts, shelters
and my body is filling, and growing
but the mint is stronger then ever.