Wine and Jazz

From the hills of West Virginia.

I remember wine and jazz
and people by the Kanawha
swaggering around like dolls

Across the heads
through the bodies
cluttered like leaves in the drain
I am forced to be here
In your presence
The water lied to me
It promised
it wouldn't leave me alone.
Now the moon and you and I and the Kanawha
are standing here
and the music is too loud
so you can't hear me singing
that song you sang to me in bed
a long
long
time ago
that song I can't forget
on such a river that is your voice
across the valley that was my neck
and I slept
in between your lips and your stomache
and no one woke us until noon


shhhh... don't tell
but I remember your mouth
how is kissed
how it pieced me together
when I thought my legs would give way
to the weight of this uncertainty
to the weight of A WORLD
up over top me.

You were a feather
a feather in a storm
and I am not quite the norm
but you loved me anyway.