When the dream began it was vague,
the colors ran together like
cheap dye and some winged someone spoke,
hissed at him:  “You should run. Take your
darling elf, hide him in a sack,
get the hell out of Dodge before
it’s too late.”

At the dying cottonwood with a bleached-out

rag, an inner tube hanging from a limb, I pulled

off the gravel, desperate for a friend, following

the empty creek curving back and forth through

steeper hills under dry mountains.

the memory of that ache, love gone taut,
like a good exhaustion,
unravels backward,
so it might as well have been for always

On my 9:30AM break I walked down to Rite Aid
and bought a sugar free Red Bull and a bag of Sour
Patch Kids.  I held off on the Sour Patch Kids until
around 11:30.  I ate half the bag.  I only stopped
because my teeth started to hurt.  My face was peeling

I know a woman who can write
a lover into being, alive with tattoos

and a German accent. I wish she could show me
how to resurrect you.

But this alchemy cannot be taught.