Plaster swells under years of paint.

I wake to the mice in the walls of my bones shifting hard-wired veins,
scurry scratches--
to the wind telling me it's just the ghosts blowing through the Amber streets.

Bruised around the sore, my mouth is an open wound.

Afghanistan

I pressed needles into my feet for every second he died and a part of me failed. I threaded through the eyes to tie little yellow bows--a dozen silver splinters, glints of light.

[His] Dead-weight shall make me heavier than the ash/soot filled jars, trash bags. He'll come home in a shoe box to be buried in our backyard--like a hamster--next to his favorite dog.