There is no hope for you. I am a wet napkin soaking Every drop of blood and tears, A blue sky you will blacken For thirty pieces of silver, You are the mouth expectant And the years dribbling off your lips Stick like grape skins to your gums. I have swallowed your life To dilute the alcohol burn And...

Echoes of your taste tingle on my tongue, The sparks of honey showering from your lips Singed my mouth and stained my kiss With a sticky itch that I cannot shake Like gum gluing to the roof of my mouth Or smears of chocolate coating my fingers. If my mouth will never find yours again, I will follow ...

My grandma climbed walls welted with thorns Without seeing or reaching the ceiling And fumbled her way up each sharp step Into the darkness above. She heard voices calling out her name Through the tall planes of plaster and wood, But when she opened her mouth to answer, Thorns pricked her tongue and...

Smoke smothers my mother With pillows of fog Spewing from tar-choked tumors Wheezing in her breast. Narrow ridges of smoke like Silent scythes held aloft Are splitting apart her lungs And spilling out her air. Smoke smothers my mother And spools above her head In rings like cloudy crowns Vanishing w...