lavage

The hot black coffee lolls upon the tongue between deep dive breezes and the scraped clean blue of the scorching sky. We live amid the wounds, every molecule seeking the easiest state, washed clean by breath and ablution. We steam and fume, melt and plume, struggle and dust all at once. Our labors and our creeds cull our strength and spirit, serving a set of tangled words and ways that came along after all our gods were dead. Plunder our last remaining honor, with brutality alway quick on its heels. We spit poison and invect the depths of known hells and doom harbingers alike, our cause so short and sharp. We spread sin with every verse,   every sura a sickness older than the gods invoked. Dealer’s choice or go for broke. The spell is as simple as any empty sentence. This is the flow you can only go with. 

The heat spreads in asphalt and engine, in sunbeam and albedo, in thirst and burn and swelter. I sit on the front porch as the dogs shift from shade to shade, wasp and dragonfly flitting across the dead weed lawn and the green sweep of leaves, slices of color dragging on my sight. The neighbors go about their lives of hard work and lawn maintenance, careful to keep their first line of defense intact. The appearances and such. The mind on the mask, losing sight of one’s eyes. The flies light upon my flesh, a taste for blood and sweat. I watch as you change your origin story yet again. 

The old wounds still fester, left unattended and unmentioned, the open shame we inherit along with the loot or the beatings. The direction the game tilts toward, the burdens deferred to the other. Look away or feast upon the bounty granted you by the power of punching down. The skin you cannot peel away you can at least get in the game. The elder wounds must be cleansed, an offering of back and brick and blood. The lessons must be forever taught, the stories forever turned into breath and bloom. The gardens again tended, the wicked returned to the rich and precious loam. The sins always soaking through, washed clean in blue and blues, learning to tell the truth that doesn’t favor you. The sun heads west without an answer or regret. Come out, calling down the blessings of the mindful moon.