cardboard graves

cardboard graves

i’ll tuck your sweaters in cardboard graves
save envelopes, return the fear
four corners meet at Beggars’ Street
this cardboard kills your mission here:
to alchemize, rewind your words

the art of sex goes back in drawers
corded belts to choke the sane
unpause your war and name your barb
wire cuts the skin, tells weathered veins:
this Lion eager for Lamb to roar

i’ll fit your things with cardboard wings
sing flights of songs to shred these years
away, my pain, no lovers’ gain
the weight of cuts, those paper tears:
i sit with ’sticks as sharp as knives

cookies furled our fortunes gold
told of the ways you went away
the harvest killed the smell of you
your triggers clicked, the ending stayed:
no garlands for our wedding day

Copyrighted by Nathan Buck 2008