we should be old by now

His soles are in the sidewalk
and I have trouble breathing such
tendencies; such inclinations to
dance, even as the violets collapse
beneath the incling
-incline
--fjeld rocket-launching into the
air: seclusion arisen.
God, his cigarettes are bread crumbs
on the ground; oh, the tendrils,
tendrils of pity
and worry
and sickness winding
beneath those shoulder blades, striding,
two jackets to keep the cold out.

I make both of us sick
and there's coffee in the cracks
in the sidewalk in the ground,
plants rising with baited breath
to scour the sky blueless.
Pollution tastes so pure
when all you see is destruction,
and oil spills are just rainbows
unless it's in your backyard and
there's a spark in your arthritic arm
and it drops.
Firelight is in our eyes tonight,
salted green, waving windless.
And oh all the smoke(?)
it makes me sick to be so near;
nearly there.

My thoughts are on the pages
on the table on the brink
of destruction because nothing
is beautiful unless there are
folds,
creases,
envelopes with letters
and kisses and tattered
flowers clinging to roots.
I cannot breathe the smell
of perennials and daffodils,
but there is amazement in
the way they tangle so
perfectly, utterly.
He mingles with the sounds of thunder,
butterflies underfoot going crunchcrunchcrunch:
a plague of broken wings and
oh, the last ones on the planet are yours.
Fold them tender.

His footprints are in the tremolos now;
all the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe,
fingers snapping: vorpal sword,
piercing words, going snicker-snack in the
dimly falling filaments.
Such inconsistencies,
and I have trouble breathing;
all these molecules in the air.
Such fucking clean air
I have trouble asphyxiating.
Oh, Callooh! Callay!
Where is the pollution?