smoke spiralling toward a retired ceiling fan
long exhausted, still spinning
over shaded stucco,
worn and grey as home.

I'm remembering black lipstick, eyes locked
far away, at the peak of a phantom cathedral roof 
built so much higher than this apartment
in a space between the cracks,
in a place of sunken, silent ships,
queued onwards and thru sonic trances
as the thought of midnight dances
on stronger stilts than mine. 

I must have walked a thousand days' worth, 
til my body dissolved my legs:
a desperate bid to seize these marching gears
grinding toward an answer
that only my heart knew would come
and how sure it was.

I might have never stopped.
I might have never stopped.
I might have never stopped,
bating breath and candlelight, alike
akin to torches against a night
still too hot
too feverish to travel by
even cutting thru the painkillers and blackness.

Oh, this woeful vessel bleeds
fed north by northwest dreams
inventive; adventive
delusions of a place where we were together
once
twice
three times, a never
riding in circles,
tracing in spheres
newer farthers, older niers
transplanting transfiction (transfixion) 

riding
on the backs of Abadon
cultured crystal clear
and each time I would die 
is a shock of Neptune's apnea
caught snapping back
bruised about the neck,
a temporal, elastic misfortune
pushing chains and boulders
to a horizon that I was never meant to see with mortal eyes.

The drift: the dustoff
is the inevitability I'll face again
soon enough (it's terminal, after all)
but I was here long enough to see your face
Unkillable Hammerhead
Horsekiller Odachi
boiling the skins of this dance down
down to its purest form
lips pursed and blistered shut, 
knowing,
yet still doing
forever and ever in futility
amen.