The moment that kills. The instant, the whisper, the tripwire and clandestine schematics (all over the sidewalk, the curb, the burnt rubber).

Again? Again and again.

He sleeps. Machines hum-whir-hum-whir, whoosh. Does he dream?

Behind a stitched lid and cut-up lip (brown, crusted beads of blood), the marrow builds and rebuilds. His pillow lungs, floating, in liquid cysts and the smell of things broken. The antibacterial soap, and his mother–over the still body and the hushed fingers and the ancient clawing hope.

Out of range.

word-stuck, staring at a blank screen. that insipid gnaw, like a stage of revolvers–with their triggers curving like iron fingernails.

what do I write, who is it for, where is the resolution?

but I see things, in a marvelous array of light. in the swollen veins of his old, old hand. in the perfect sky. i see things: the moving art. the surreal design. I pity anyone who never felt the way I do tonight.

I look out and I know. Behind the space there is M42, the orion nebula with her stellar arms twisting in a dance that knows no time–and in those arms, are nurseries. Stars are being born.

You are, you are perhaps, the throbbing star that is hinged to the firmament. With arms and the tower of a spine: you are, perhaps, the tall climb to a month of yellow.

I do not know who you are exactly, but I will owe you so much.

You are, no longer innocuous, capable of attaching the glacial stone. With a mouth that burns, too warm, and leaves the thistle residue of a moment just out of reach.

The waiting grows wings, splayed out like a moth pinned to a cardboard. Things move with lunar force. The wine light of early morning suckles on my sleeping body, and I dream of you.

You are, perhaps, all that is real.

She is:

An endless bruise. Three years have developed the blue and purple river system. The web of burst vessels, detectable just beneath the skin. Staring like a bloodshot eye. I am reminded. I am a vague incidental of this astrolabe of grief: this complicated interaction of endlessly moving parts.

Prompted for flight. Fourteen years of wingspan clipped just beneath her shoulder blades. Perched like a sentinel above the wreckage, above her own crushed body and this early morning scene that will never be completely real. The dream that is birthed from this single moment. The dream that her shattered bones will reconnect.

The infuriating absence. The not-laughter and not-smile, the not-eyes burning like two collapsing suns.

In five minutes, it’s going to rain.

I am walking down four flights of stairs. My arms and shoulders are sore from push-ups. She snickers behind me, like a tongue bitten hard, “It’s not goin to work.” The fire door gives, and I’m out. Outside, the sky is cemented to space. The air is damp, ready, and holding its breath. I want to climb a tree. I want.

There are three doors. I choose the one on the left, and it squeaks when I open it. There is a giant television without sound and a girl on the floor with her eyes shut. I check my mail. There are unopened envelopes and an invitation to get drunk. There are customs.

I have two chambers in my heart. You are sitting in the right one, invisible, and you don’t know where you are. You don’t know that this is my heart.

And in one minute, it’s going to rain.