Smoke

You are smoke in the absence of flame,
wildflower in a tux,
whose morning glory face is a contradiction
painted with a brush of mushroom stems.

No artist, I eat the quill
asking it to paint a clearer picture of you
inside my head, but instead
you hijack my mind
and write on it with graffiti fingers
that are your lost-boy thoughts.

You tell me there are stars on the wall
because you put them there in a dream,
a reminder that the things we think
grow from seeds if we don't destroy them
with our weedkiller beliefs
which insist on telling us
stars belong up there in the sky.
I think the stars were framed, you say.
I think we all are
and the frame is just another cage.

You were sad that night,
huddled down inside my soul,
a little boy with a teddy-skeleton
clutched to the illusion
of your flat male chest
that had grown a woman's breasts,
for which I humbly apologize.

We slept together, do you remember?
Two souls tangled in my veins
dreaming separate dreams of infinite precision
that got lost somewhere in the smoke
that stands apart from the flame.

When dawn comes early
you call her a coward
afraid of the dark
and in my heart you ask me
to make it snow in August.

All I can do is remember November,
desert air painted pallid,
white as casket satin,
cold and pure.

I danced for you in a trench coat,
alive for the first time
with snowflake-angel-tears
on my cheeks.

Heaven knew then it had lost me
in the storm
where a black hearse sat in the driveway
with its engine running
and you at the wheel.