burial

you were packing up all your circuit boards & sheet music
& the army survival guide you used to do coke off of
i was wrapping my dried yucca pods in tissue paper
& scratching my mosquito bites until they bled


a decade passes so quick & so slow
an existence splayed like a roadmap of the u.s.
the empty spaces between ruidoso & metairie
scattered like mothballs among church spires
& the world’s largest anything
i was so afraid of hitting a deer on that midnight drive
through the panhandle with you asleep on my right


i had my first mojito underage at a cuban place in austin
but we never made it to estonia like we planned
fastest growing economy circa 2007
& cathedrals adorned with human bones
the best of both worlds (you used to know me so well)


it’s odd the bits that stick: the green countertops in your parents’ house
the dry heat that summer i ran my bike into the side of a porsche
parked on 5th & logan crying and smoking all at once
i haven’t been able to eat radishes in years


last week at dusk i hiked an abandoned trail
through the ashes of roosevelt forest
& slept outside under ribbons of whitish september sky
endings are always hot & alone
& i wish to end that way: covered in branches & leaves
the way that elephants bury their dead

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