Tonight the city has swallowed another
One too many for my mother; heart

stitched inside her stomach,


the murmured shade of flowers, dried.
One too many
for me to slip out of the noose
that pinches off words in my throat.

See how I wither
how each glaring window on a calendar



traps me
how neon screams without light



Night laughing and its teeth

its voice of asphalt and car tires and rain
Smear across my sight a shadow
of the other

caught between bleached dreams
of sun and streets breathing rain
Where he wanders, hunched under
sirens shrieking like ancient birds