West of the

Pizza place, we're retouched in gold.
Something desperate it is that you hold wide in you hands
as you
explain
as always.
Maybe I had something to say to you then.
That moment's gone missing.
Pizza place, we're retouched in gold.
Its accolades in want of mantles,
walls, even.
Its accolades hanging otherwise
poltergeistically
in the chill that worries my spine.

Unmouthable Lake

Where we are equals
is a lake with
unmouthable
words for a name.

And crowned in firs.

Your greens are long
drawn through the water
staining ribbons
around my skin.

But I

Oh, I
am fast in the water
and this is why
we're equals here.

If I cannot touch you,

I can be breathed in
by the gills
also breathing in you

so that we are one song

sung
by the unmouthable lake,
each of us mere notes
in its melody

safely just parts of

a music happening
on the skin
and in the spine,
felt, never heard.