419 degrees

the flesh finds bone dried

dreaming of lakes of you

who is

no more than handfuls of love and blood

and tomorrow built in like the sky

though you stretch bigger

like snow melting

though you retain your form

which sometimes includes being broken

by every day

and mostly

the days that don’t happen

that mist a telling of rain

that never pours yet never clears

that sees you hurling yourself evermore

to littler things like the stove that needs cleaning

because you are having guests now

who will leave one day and maybe talk about

how nice your place was or how you were nicer

or how all of it was nice because the stove was yours

even if you couldn’t make it

even if you weren’t sure how it worked

even if you sometimes burnt things

like yourself

drying now

old and whispering

but who is who is who is

still

riotously still

after it all

the stove stopped working

years ago

while the flesh ripened