I recall the bruised

December

​

you came home

a deer around your shoulders:

​

the crown-head a mass

of shattered bone,

​

eyes still warm,

blood-pale in sockets. Never

​

mind the muttering on

about sleep and its stages, rigor

​

mortis snagged on the edge

of a dream. Tautology of a second-

​

chance, wasn’t this just another drunken

body from afar, bagged

​

and ready for worship. Every

word wrapping winter around

​

its hunger, every prayer

sublimed to an empty palm.

​

I see myself in the incense

harvested from your mouth’s

​

bloom--paper wick

abating in your eyes.