company is kept plain
desert snow
this house
i could say
is full of strangers
loved by maybe obligation
depending on how you look at it
within a ghost
or
carefully eating in a bath
kept lukewarm
skin echoing necessity
the page flipped
a book drowning air
destitute sky pressing in

the ground
littered by ringlets of peels
of tangerines popping
in blue light
a screeching stove

lover, be sweet

as if hiding in a car
traveling make-do of the verb
to live
hair fixed for romance
tangled in a milkshake often
called a beverage
gripping a cup of coffee
lips blue and ivory
raised unfaithful
treading silence in tongue
in teeth
cupped breast admired
from afar

and

at a certain point
her daughter began to
contemplate death