No Fixed Star - Malamute

if i need to breathe i will if i had some time to kill i’d paint your brother here just as he is slipping through your arms you slur, “Los Angeles” cut your teeth on vapid love nourishing as the thought of peace in a winter trench by the river Somme you speak in low, hushed tones and ramble on about the things you know you’ve become the tired likeness of your mother’s love without the nurturing touch your bloodhounds comb the night your mortar’s taking flight you’re marching single file right through my square singing, “hallelujah” you swung your bayonet with a martyr hanging from your neck you were a song in the Sunday choir a voice in the reeds drifting west that humid summer day butchered any real memory as they washed your sins away and wet your hair to bible black your death, decaying smile god, I wish you’d just stay a while I thought we spend the night pulling frequency from the western front i want see them made before they were ashamed crawling up the city streets Adam and Eve sweating out the drugs howitzer shakes the ground fragments shatter light and bone i dreamt you were in bed and caught my ghost slipping through your chest your atrium collapsed reticulated steps that led to where you slept went stretching out looking for a room a whimpering howl comes out as hell comes raining down reduced to pawing floors and patient trust sweet malamute and while snow covers us from inside your father’s truck voices through FM waves tell us to run and wish us luck a peaceful, dark place a little air to breathe a corner of the world that’s all we’re looking for