in rainbows

***

i sat at that damn bus stop with a restless skirt and numbtipped ears
listening to the sound of tires sighing almost inaudibly over street so black
nine-fifteen turned into nine-twenty-nine turned into ten oh clock and,
i could've been there by now.  but instead i skulked up and down,
forgetting to myself memories of how to love and how to love not-
picking up pebbles and dropping them, again and again and then,
two in my pocket and ten on the floor, thinking a window the only door.
i want to hear the way those bits of stone pop under my impossible weight
of, the things that i can't quite figure out. my skirt is a dead rose.
dead and restless, read and deadly, feckless and ready.
a sign that says Come Back & Focus Again/The Walls Abandon Shape
/You've Got a Cheshire Cat Grin/ (The Beat Goes Round & Round)

when i tripped on the curb and fell, not far from the place where you live
i scuffed the tips of my beautiful boots and tore open my stocking skin-
still whistling a tuneless Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye, i lurched
into the sidewalk that says, Come ON and Let it Out/Come on & Let it Out
/(The Beat Goes Round & Round/ The Beat Goes Round & Round).
my skirt gathered around me like a flower soft and withered,
the things i carry everyday scattered in a wide halo of delusion and sadness.
in the darkness, i mustered as much of it back to myself as i could,
uncertain of all that i left behind. (The Beat Goes Round & Round)

***