I haven’t
been sick like this
since I was six
or maybe nine
that deceptively mild
hazily pleasant
heartbleating ache
and motherseek fever
that takes you
to that tender place
of breezy white flags
and euphoric yield
and there, you,
the fever-softened six
or nine year old
is inspired to climb
the honeyblonde vines
of a girl’s pigtails
up
and up
and up
into that secret attic
so nourishingly dark
and quiet
where you cloister
in a nook
and allow your fingers
to register the heart’s Braille
by rowing across
the musky, yellow pages
of books
harboring timestained
pulsing
like dollops of viscera
and beads of skin
beneath
the ginger marvels
of your touch . . .
And you stay there,
just as you are,
a future child
of no tomorrow,
a purveyor of dark, trembling matter,
and golden drifts of snow,
you stay there,
quiet, happy,
unfinished,
somebody’s ink
bled through
the slow fever
of dream.
Hearts Braille ❤️
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