My girlfriend is collecting dust

from a field. The field is braided in purple

hibiscuses, and behind it, a monolith.

 

I could smell them—the swaying blades of

elephant grasses. They moved like analog

wristwatches in a whirlpool of humanoid digits. 

 

I am carrying bugs in a matchbox, too afraid to

weave a story about the night rain and little

pellets tumbling in a river.

 

A bar, and a green

bottle sucks the wind from a man's throat.

The night grooming and skinning broad day

 

light. In those moments, I can see how lost even

a stone can be. The dew-lapped leaves morphing

into slopes for the termite to float. 

 

I hold on to

my girlfriend like a memory: tightrope needled

through my vein and tautened to the link. 

 

Red boys crushing paper flowers on the blue 

tongue of glossic fire. Tamarind and marigold

heaped on the soft music of your garden. 

 

The cold and

lonesomeness means the flowers are undressing

silently. Wilting under the dim eye of the kerosene

​

lamp, in a rather dark house with many birds—

In the field, I chose the pearls in my eyes, I chose

to redo happiness.