Guns lay down bodies and we still fold
Our clothes neatly in tall towers, in rows across the bed.

We give up lighters for matchsticks, letters
For the rattle of keyboards and hopeful we climb staircases
Towards the moonbeams that sit on the landing.

Careful, I give up on sleeping.
I wander out into the rainfall and linger neath the trees,
Eager to catch a stranger by the arm and drag him
To the field where nothing may shadow us.

I give up on explaining, watching milk roll into a clear glass,
Keeping secrets and heaving boxes
Out of closets.

Text messages pling and pling as the
voice messages go silent. We take five minute showers
And stop listening for the cars on the avenue to go quiet.

I give up on explaining, watching milk
Spill into wildfires and bodies lay down with guns.

I spin my wristwatch in the dryer, hoping
It will move fast enough to puncture through time and
Stop
Everything.

Guns lay down bodies and bodies lay down with guns.
Careful, the milk rolls backward
Into the carton, the moonbeams fall
Down the staircase like the bodies
That lay down from guns.

I give up on explaining. I pick up my feet and flee,
Forward into the night. I give up on us.

First published on Poet’s Corner June 27, 2016