The Distant Jaw {poem}

The Distant Jaw

mascara whispers
between the small spaces
in your mouth.
I will not let you
out
I will not let you run
back into the
forest.

because when you said
you
were an angel
the flashlights were immediately
pointed down to the ground

we understand how the
lights
hurt your eyes

we knew to immediately
operate on an
encrypted channel
and run our
external communications
through
an international mud-switch.

we gave you your distance
although
we crowded you in a circle
I told them
to put their
weapons down.
They did so.

I knew, the others did not,
to avoid looking
you directly in the eyes.
it was information I was obligated
to share,
but chose not to.
they have never encountered
an ETB before.

within 14 seconds
I saw wisps of heat
drape from
your mouth. they rose into high
cast foliage, burning the leaves
as they gathered light
and floated back home.

you taught me
how to smoke
in the rain.

wearing a silk
smock and
I have laced my boots
all the way
up my thighs.

I taste the motors
of your
pray-things
following you closer
making your
teeth
straight
and your scars become mine.

immutable dystopia,
I want to go back to
California with you
drive around Sunset with
the top down
singing among the wretched humility
of my permanence
so you can see what we've become.

lost is heaven
within your heart,
faith sudden in
the morning bloom of desert blythe.
take this door
upon its open
allowing the light
back in.
so to, fill our Ghost
from crater steam
with your ephemeral heart.

we are the falling water
into the repository
swollen
of quick moving clouds
and
lightless light,
for what dreams dance
if our
children cannot laugh
in the
cadence of God.