Familiar with this fallen moon,
        I ask you point cold blank:
        "Do you drink every night?"
        An answer, the hangnail of silence,
        bleeding color, forming crust.
        Conversation peeling back
        as if it hit pedestrians,
        wants to start its path again.
        I know that freight train
        head trip morning seize,
        wondering what hate
        was spoken in the dark.
        What hugs were traded for a slap.
        Thumping ache, a sense that
        even summer clouds
        are farting ice and hailstones.

        That soggy guilt is a post-it note
        flying into daylight's soup.
        Things we did and hours missed
        on easy, legal, acid trips.
        I know that churning
        stomach time, where
        a painting is off the hook
        in a narrow hallway,
        face down in the puddle
        of a gruesome lie.
        Holly berry crimson nose--
        brighter than a perking sun.
        That pasture where
        to pour is prayer.

Copyright © Janet I. Buck, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.