sizzle

The name arrives unannounced, the gutters cluttered with coffee cups and cigarette filters, a worn-through brake-pad whining on by.  It frames the rustle of the leaves with that slow cool breath of a dusk breeze. It paints away at the worn out sky, stipples it with the sharp pointed stars. The rush of night, your flesh a fever burning on my brow. The dismal span between all those bunched up constellations. The salt of a secret just there upon my lips.

Traffic lights and broke down cars, a quick press to the next best curb. The long yawn of night descends, crippled in the color of dozing crows. Spoke like an oath, worn like a story, shining inside out. The name burning meaning down, a forest for a match. Some reason for these dispatches of ash. Some motive to all these pretty beads and lights.


Soon the wounds all hang from the ache of battered bones. The very spark struck to see devouring the scenery. The saga now a smoking husk along the side of the road. Were these stitched on smiles and merit badges all the mystery allows? The very bluff and thunder of prayer the body and the blood? The numbers strung on those crisp bitten voices of mission control, static rising like steam in the shower. Say it aloud, to the walls and the windows. Your voice rising with all those heaven high hopes. The moment from that first baptismal drizzle to the sizzle in the steak.