stet

the living room has long since given up
its qualifier. your lips are not the dangling
modifiers i fell in free verse with.

- - -

when i get home, you are already half past,
tense, unjustified, flush right, reciting the rests
between—

- - -

if form takes content out in the first
round, technically speaking, your pronoun
is still long, hypothetically, unedited.

- - -

recite
the rests
between

chapters like you would any
tongue—that is to say, don’t stop
indenting me in lieu of your curvy new

stanza: i have a name
with your story written
all over it.

New York has exploded

under the red sky. The river
is full of dead women, their bones
clacking like backwards bows. The tide
rises and falls and the backs of their mouths
turn sinkward. As always, I am the last soldier.
There are no trenches, just the sleeping ferryman.

I turn my gun to Jersey, shoot glass stars into the glass
water and the glass women rise, rise like witches’ bread.