Chris Guidon-

I Fell in Love When She Looked Down

I fell in love when she looked down.
Some memory snagging
and pulling her away.

You'll see me picking roses in the grave-
yards. Or
drunk, fighting in the gutters.

The soft scent
that blossoms at the bow
of the nape.

The warmth of a being
curled up in my arms.
The stars pulsing softly at the window.

Shadows hang
from the wonderment of woman
like prayer flags on the mountain-side.

My love is a sober lust,
my lust is a flickering candle
Molten wax on milky white skin.

Youth

I see you now. In the flickering bathroom mirror. You
fight for air, and cough blood like pigeon shit. Damn the flow.
The eyes losing light. Like a sun. Not exploding wholly, super-
nova,  shuddering off into nothingness. But slowly. Quietly.

Shamefully. I take a blade and cut the blue vein. Abort the child.
Her voice bleeds through the door and the blade is only a dove
again. And the years settle back, into the furrows
of my eyes. Translucent skin holding nothing in. Tears. Age. Regret.

Seagulls

We're nearly invisible to the seagulls.
As the gods once were, to the cave dwellers.

Violence is an initiation. A progression.
To touch that old world is what fascinates.

Children in their hats and gloves, one hand
in a parents' one hand making an offering,

not skywards to the distant angels, but down
to the cut-away spaces below.

Those glass eyes, searching for movement.
Waiting. Remembering.