How did he strum
while walking
even in dark alleys
with shades and a large belt buckle
that heralded battles
nobody won,
with serpentine grace
and fangs barely buried,
hands made to stay sure and dirty,
a tilt of the head
that spelled insolence
and cleansing fire?

Armed only
with a paper license to inflict words
of desperation like yellow streaks of sun
burned across closed eyelids,
the man doesn’t glance away
from his path of righteous doom,
not for wayward rodent greetings
or for screaming jets of bio waste
or for candy lingering on a bitter tongue
and not for her fading suit of skin.

A day without complaints
imagining fireflies plucking banjos, playing spoons;
packing for ventures
with too many life-saving devices
for a life to be given away like so much canned heat.
We hold our charms to be self evident
and make no bones
about disdaining the things we want,
though we could power whole cities
with the energy
of our constant backpedaling.
So no dark words today,
for the day will be lit from inside.

When our foreheads met
and it was only time
misplaced,
all breath and sweat
lost importance
while matters of
jigsaw bones and fated lips
met in patterns too great
for mere words.