please estimate the handfuls of conversations 

slipping through fingering hinges of death;

figuring out how best to avoid the wrong keys 

on the piano of synapses, 

incandescent riffs between skull and teeth 

prove how much light went missing 

in the timeless hole keyed by ‘education’.

within cupped palms of cement, unset-

tled creative spirits staggered in unprofit-

able, disfigure-

d suffering.

cliché guilt cripples — 

you’ve only managed a scrawl,

a sickly star scribbled by wounds 

that would’ve crawled back home 

and called it a ‘wander’

even if it were worn down by

cavities to ‘wa___r’. 

here’s to the memory that beats 

like a harvested heart,

beats up every snow-soaked silhouette 

of who we once were 

because we had to be, 

waiting on the candle (or the scythe)

to see us fire (or set us free) 

from the liberty of ‘time’ (courtesy of the good old canon).