“FOR SYLVIA AND JEFF”

Scarlet blood on candid white sheets 

from scabs on a pair of shriveled knees 

that met the cruel and frozen earth

one, too many times.

Tumbleweeds of golden curls

from a girl shedding like a dog

in a place reeking of rubbing alcohol,

lost appetites and a dead woman's poetry.

Mold on the walls of a frail organism,

expanding like an oil spill on a linen tablecloth,

conquering one organ at a time with its 

blackish starry diabolical despair.

A man drowned decades ago screams repeatedly

in my ears, together we harmonize as we agonize,

for I’ve been under water too, and not all corpses have

soil over their heads. 

Sometimes I feel like I was born to yearn 

for something that will never find me.

M.L. December ‘24