Shawn Arrajj

Cell Mate

long-walk home; I learn how to fly,
to let the kitchen fall, cell mate of the moon

I listen to the footsteps of waitresses
             who talk
             nothingelsetodo.
                         to eat like a bird, I await
             the depth of December when all the
stars,
the past,
both turn a privacy
of --
-- into
front way South and leave it twisting
now sensing it’s The bird, walking
             the dying death,
             damnedest to reveal death as nothing
                                    personal,
                         and of death profound.
                         empty water glasses.

I sold August for a train escapade
             and have a
             shack that compels us
                                     to think:
              “silverware trashcan fires”
                         between spurts of rain. Turning the key
O,
within my prison
a name
             for his tombstone. His hands now cold
                         as
             June is the grooves beneath my shoes,

             my father recounted mine
             as the single siren
             that wails through the downpour.
                         Into believing the sky has limits.
the broken bottles in the basement of restaurant
                         or its
             sometimes wise and monotonous hum of
             ice-machine
                         follows me back up
                         Those stairs
                                     sides,
                                     sides,
                         all leading to the final
customer pause,
                                     their e, forced –
                                     that run-down about babies
                         because a cigarette,
                         while squirming on the sidewalk.

new song from the apartment,
             identical doors one night down Barbuda, the homeless
             roasting
             as it slowly turns to ice.
in one last try,
as a man staring forever
into paralyzing floor grime, falls
             on his deathbed,
                         tries his I Did Not Know, and now it’s

March, a prisoner has barred Out the
              “here” – jail cell floor – and so long “For now,” I can only
                         sleep home for several hours;
                         before he died leaving
                                     nothing behind amongst nothing
                                     but a
                         month to rest headlights.

January is life’s last few years,
             a home
             gives it all to song
                         a pond behind a run-down shack
             in the woods where I spend

hours
everyday

--

obedient tongues and clinking

--

water, I’m tricked

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