Unintended Morphology

everybody knows if you don't mind

your mothers words, they sneak up behind

and lick the wounds from yesteryears

and former lifetimes, distanced by you

and a momentary pause as I

look into your eyes. you only smile

on tuesdays and I can see life

in you. I mirror myself, emulations

upon canyon walls painted orange for autumn,

staying here, playing here, on the shelf

across from pianos sprung brightly.

time has come to open the envelope,

a silver lake across the open sands

sprinkling rain like flames rising

from your grandfather's pipe, fresh

lit. each breath coughs smoke

into eyes watering. fading smiles with eraser strokes

across the mountain's feet, a winter

deep underground, moss and fabrication. hold me now

or hold me once and for all, an ultimatum worth

repeating. no,

she won't bring back the days filled with maple

and powdered sugar. Filed away in some cabinet, miles

and miles

from the beginning of nowhere, the edge of serenity's

infertile sanity. We'll sing and we'll shout

until the aah's and oo's

crack into little boy, little boy lost

listening to a mother or a stranger. she'll run

on, alone between his knees,

naming the children with each breath, measuring each step:

one alligator two. In time

to the opening of another window

at summer's precipice. joy and a girl catalog

stories untold, secrets hidden

behind guitar chords, wearing a dress.