Afterglow
An ocean, cream calm and wide. Tides that breathe with a secret pulse.

The dishes need to be washed.
The dog needs to be walked.
The children need to be watched.
The minutes slip by one by one
Before you notice the years gone.

I swim in the warmth of your arms
I bathe in the kindness of your eyes
I hold your sweetness in my hands
And I still haven’t had enough of you
To fill my appetite

his face in the photograph
is waxen,
his cigarette drooping
from his teeth,
while the kids
embark on warm kisses
he sits in front of the
water jets listening
to David Bowie
singing “Life on Mars” 

Most of us gaze in dismay
as pieces of us fall away with age:
Merrick gained.
He gathered, accumulated, soared and swelled—
until he crumbled.

The sign outside the office said, You are requested to close your eyes. She did. In those far-off days, illnesses had other names – bloody flux, Bright’s disease, consumption. Her doctor was so deaf he needed an ear trumpet to be able to hear the patients screaming in pain.

Pinned to a spinning board
Like a human butterfly
The blades come so close
They whisper in her ear

Of course they removed my skull
and retooled it as a font.
Then they stretched and smoked my face
above a wood fire. They sewed it
around a tough little fistful
of brain-pulp spiced with preservatives.

All night, pages turn as old books
read themselves over and over.
Their intelligence rises to mate
with the cosmic dark matter
that empowers nothing but fills
the gaps between great moments
of supernova.