lying. She told me not to
        and discover a new form
        tango-like. Bitter. Or was it
        ensconced? The trail
        of black smoke taper
        and thin candle- it's
        ceiling-high. The ISBN
        quietly feels her up-

        I take Central Avenue instead of the highway knowing exactly why: generic aerodynamic bodies and stomp on the brake, cut-throat drivers fill up that interstate. Central Avenue has cruisers, proud of their souped-up, custom-painted carros that purr like a cat, wheels that stick out from the frame and make a giant floating skateboard.

        Comes winter.
        The ground's hardness betrays
        the crux of a season's sadness
        held tightly in our oversized boots.

    Rubbing emollient molecules on his face
    to absorb the sun's rays would protect him
    from doom and her, he concluded,
    so every morning the slather
    but each night brought the downpour -
    surviving by these protective, intangible rituals

I'm short, the kind of short you have to look down to see but aren't afraid of. I like to watch spaghetti westerns in a brown suede cowboy hat and sit on my sagging plaid couch and dream of forty-year-old Marlon Brando in black-and-white still shots.