Facial Elision
by JD Harms
Stark love heard in the gasp, a finding of walls, of support. The scorn of fragility, the tattoos of a wisdom pixelated into the looseness of movement. You bring the wine, the legs, and the face goes sliding away.
The trading of the seat for a cushion of the air you wished for, leaning. The edge of the shout dying on the mouth. The scream hopes for a new eyes to take it in, to hang onto. At first you love the distance, but then you stop looking for your other hand.
Screeching through the world, decisions going sideways, going up, taking you along while you look and crease the photographs with a stick, with a light.
Yes, fire makes all things fine. Dry perspective, now, the blur of the world shaking past. There is that needle in the thigh, a new way to sidestep Mars, get frustrated with an apparent future.
All propped up, now, half-observed, still obsessed. The avoidance of everyone, the hiding masks that fit in the back pocket with room for a life of expression, and constant elision. Alone.
The heart clangour moroseness stitched on a perpetually closing mouth. Skip the vodka, the rum, the night where you weren’t lonely. For once. Speculate, by the gods, keep up with the speculative. Nowhere is somewhere nearby, I know.
Strand courage where it belongs, between the pages, but don’t read it later. Or, read it later with the cigarette still unlit, that letter that signals the return of the stark love.
