choke on sweltering
air.
Watch crystal skies wreak
vapor;
draw a smile in it.
Don’t go
cicada scream--
a hellish orchestra.
Unrelease into
greedy reaching hands,
but wait!
These ones smile.
Their tongues flicker promises
not to break him, not to harm.
Laugh at the redundancy,
their naivety; the kids, parents,
the puppets.
At the already shattered, molten,
then forged in iron.
Grip the fabric that was let go
with white knuckles, shivering lips.
Liberate, emancipate, discharge,
cicada shriek
through shaking eardrums,
pounding, echoing through skulls.
Ring in the emptiness,
wallow in the blistering absence,
Choke on it.
Reverse another pink sunrise,
which whores sad stained eyes.
untouch down in the brick jungle--
the antiqued wilderness.
This is it
cicada screech
into the dripping night
and morning that sticks to skin
in fresh layers of paint,
paint that belongs to a white picket fence,
on shiny barracks.
Back up to cheering.
Unpuff the chests, unstretch
the expecting arm and hand yearning for
that firm grip, denature the "I love you's"
erase the pride that keeps them undisclosed.
Unstain the shirt, dry every tear,
unwrap that last embrace.
Rewind.