clean bills; the drycleaned dollar.

you were fucked up in beauty
the thread of confusing red string wrung round your lips in a dark
temperate
flux.
and i was there holding the pivets and hollows of my knees
bending my fingers back
and retracting my every word
no
extracting it.
this was the way i was.

i was the first of the fruit to fall
and be handed
amongst men,
amongst the crowds.
and there was a shush
and
my personal fables were quiet.

and there was a humm
and my inviible audience was on
that string.

tied to my finger,
these reminders. dedicating words
to the lights as they faint from exhaustion.

my neck just this source of strength. to hold my head up. this pride compromised like a kneadable eraser. these days like a gift,
each. and where are we putting them?
behind us. watching us walk away.
this.
the way it should be. man creation of the pocketwatch;
the way it was.