Vector

Their twilight missions are campaigns against flesh.
One after another; two, then half a dozen
seeking my vulnerabilities.
Smoke, fire, chemical warfare resistant; they persist
in endless pricks blemishing my skin.
My arms and feet as nectar feeders,
I am their meal intoxicant.
I have the sweet blood.

There's something about pre-apocalyptic air and the stirrings of war that you'll never understand until the blood settles and dries.

Cause and effect.

The fading ebony and egg-creme ivory feel stiff like her arthritic fingers. The hammers and dull chords with notes sunk southward--vapid and unanswered, such are the words that never came. The boy with the almond eyes pleads with the old woman to play his favorite tune--an airy, innocent jingle. She sits in her chair, rocking and rhythmically rubbing her knees, back and forth creaking the floorboards. "The key players are dead."

My throat has become swollen and scratched- a sure sign that I've said the wrong things.

My hands smell like blood.

Leave it alone.

I wanted a yes/no answer, but settled for labeless bottles of impulse and restless sleep. My voice and sensibility left in a fruit bowl full of keys by the front door. A girl asked me where I lay my head at night, unaware she had proven a point about the difference between something and nothing; between temperate air and the moon rising; what I've done and who I'm becoming.

Come Sunday I'm tethered back home to begin something of a repair. My body, thirsting and bruised, shrinks and stands to be bonier. I pluck and tap my ribs like the tuneless piano I tickled then had sex on. I prayed the wind would gather my bones when I'm scattered about the streets.

My father announced at dinner that he had given up on me each night around the 4am hour.