top hats, and satin..sequins and smokescreens..til
mr. Bunny Wabbit kicks me out..onto card hands
..into palms and a lover's old silver rings..til an ace
crumbles and crumples and folds..into dove wings
and sleight of hand..hands that cup beneath white
sheets..with stiffled laughs and blushing cheeks..til
my skin is dirtied and thrown out, along with petals
sprinkled and spun and grown with perfume in rain's
stead..thrown out, onto cobblestones and rusty locks
..shivering, beneath street lamps, pulling out crooked
smiles and cloth cloth cloth..knots and tugs and pulls
of cotton tails and nostalgia..til I am found; bare, with
pockets out, sleeves empty, hands cold..til I am me;
kept, in need, in want, in trust..til I have learned to take
romanticism in, in place of air..til my lungs break, with
very little say..til my lines stop and clock and learn how
to keep themselves from rambling..onto phrases and
phases of nothing..til then, I will keep my second-hand
self..til I find reason to trade the M word in, for an L