RASH

The long wooden hall leads to
further stairs and catacombs.
I've been wandering like a lush
in the warm weather, metering my
doses cold rainbows and metronomes.
Aches and pains shrivel up soft
testes rotten fruit and honey hams.
pick the skin rash and swell.
River in the summer time now
a sidewalk in the new ice.
Popped down to honey town
took a walk in fetid rain.
Saw my old dead friend sitting
with the knife held still - he
looked glad to see me.
I said,"Wait, we can't walk
here it's dark we'll get lost."
Motion of tidepools swell my
legs with healing sweat. Nutrients
dust and cornmeal picked up in the
drainage ditch outside my old house
in North Carolina, there was Santa
and Pink Floyd and 10cc,
all shared the catacombs trailing
down summer roads. The dark was warm,
sweet, inviting...he looked at me with
all the forgiveness of heat stroke
took my hand and smiled...I know
it's begging to fall in good grace,
I know that purple sore is healed but
still present...I peeled off my face
and hushed dark and sweet.
The tool shed out back by the old grove
musty spiders in rolled up tarp, smell
of wood and old paint and sweat.
I lost it.
Summertime.

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