Richard King Perkins II
Darkless
For the first time
it’s
darkless
we’re unhinged
by bits of sun
a sudden flood
of white blush humming.
The powder of day
blows across a floor
of remnant slippage
and linoleum repurposed.
The sky bends low,
close at hand;
we fill it with spirant smoke
and muscular bondage—
if not for
committed willpower
and primitive instincts
I would have you
right now
in a full-term
afterglow.
Unwanted help
and sunset
would never arrive.
Less than Most
You know I don’t like
casual touching
it’s like something
out of a blue rain
textures too numinous
to define.
But when the thing
I am
stands next to the thing
you are
errata become erotic,
mystery a lubricant
and my arm wraps you
in a graceless half-hug.
Because poetry
is your native language
you repulse me
less than most
Onyx and Sawdust
She
(meaning the girl
of a much greater story)
spent the first day of spring
bending glass animals
and folding little reminders of death
into jewelry
that smelled like vanilla and rain.
She even thought for a moment
that she could be alright
(but that was not her fable)
so as the songbirds left the courtyard
she nearly stopped breathing
suffocated by the treachery of onyx
and sawdust
sprinkled upon the constellation of her skin.
