kissed a ghost
for that moment
it had gravity
stronger than
his conversation

informed yet
deforming & i
didn't deserve a
lustre longer

but i caught
a bit of his tongue
& felt redeemed
like some rogue
jury letting a
scoundrel go

cradled in this cold
crook of winter's long night limb
weaving a few words

a web of
slow notes
cradles but
cannot keep me

slip
skip

2 a.m. trip
through plains
of bored playlists

flirt with insomniac
guide meditation
too light
not right

for crossed wires

a synapse snap
blew my snooze fuse

so buried beneath
this crashwave of
tripped circuit breakers

in the thick
of thin hours
o what viscous
thoughts & what
vast waded spaces

i've laid hold upon
a hideyhole home
halfway

up a mountain
midst woods
& wild wanders

its sentinel calico
dark atop a thin
trunk pedestal
over-shoulder
surveyed me

shadow sphinx
still let me past

& deer desperate
for summer dregs
dare at the doorstep
among a deciduous dusk