025: Numb and numbered

Toddling tide already worn,

swim in faces, reading episodes

of ache flicks and ether exits,

in a precise drift silence signals

a sniper reloading datum trace.

Her length and width to southern winds,

we count in seconds that won't sit still,

hypertension housed in heavy husks,

landlocked within shelves of stardust,

intimate whispers mantling cathedral walls

upheld by matchstick counterforts.

Glints in grinning eyes shed light

on catapults of word and bone

with torment tongue armed, milk white,

chalk black cadaver silhouette,

but candor ships sway tenderly,

just beyond the morning rim.

Play chords in red, cast self in sleep,

the music of mountains built on clouds,

hear and see with concrete sense

a ravaged circuitry bouquet,

killing fields of fear and desert dissent

playing for keeps, praying for rain.

Paste on the pavement a human smudge,

a fragile grace steals my breath away;

never account for a ruminant string,

we'll ride to the sun on wings of night.