fruitless movement of two conductors
who remove a platform from their feet and
leave their bodies train bound, proving together,
within their reflections
and their jewelry shadows
hollow outlines in the sunset sit not too far
from those just as neatly bound to or toward
familiar distances
some humble, others peregrine
both the distances, and the people,
that is.

doors separate periodically and it would seem usual
discourse could be heard delicately dissolving into upward blues and greys
and in a better place, each person on this train is a protagonist
and though some will argue that in one way or another, we each are,
this train car in particular would struggle.

stepping like she would were she struggling to notice herself
or not so lightly among a station's advertisements
at younger ages she could conjure rides home and
various methods of pavement
shot each in just a different amount of daylight
to be construed every time as a new experience.

(interestingly enough it was now the ride away from home
that offered her this feeling.)

with an almost off-white, blackwhite wall
paper told eyes, still human eyes, eyes
that had seen but not heard what it meant to be seen
that for every winter swallowed, a reborn would find it's way

whether reborn or stillborn, you were still born, they will say
and upside down or right side up
either way
you'll roll past their newspaper noses
each and every one popping your qwiffs
your waves becoming linear
(And now they can trace you)
(something even your mother struggled)
and since lucky ears stay shorelines when other waves, noises,
stumble upon them,
they'll argue, 'when they entered, those too became traces'

they dare you to find them, and you close your eyes for what feels
like the warmest amount of time
until everything you can taste is pink
and everything you can feel is white
and your only smell peptides

four stubborn campfires struggle in your lungs,
your veins are branches, you see?
have you ever started a fire you couldn't put out?
ever had to dig so deep?

your lover's prayers have left puddles and some
stumbled through with bare feet
and maps stretched across far-fetched footsteps,
to pick them up and drop them on me.

from here the sun plays the role of hardly a friend
but not so much a mother
as a sister, or a brother, hiding thoughtlessly

but since she's here for now, stick your tongue out,
take in as much as you can
swallow as often as possible
because your campfires are spreading.

Maybe a riddle, a joke

How do you survive in a cheap motel room with only a calender and a mattress?

Answer:
You eat the dates from the calender and drink from the springs in the mattress.

but I'd never known leaves as pages
not this way.

Eden spends her time writing about the sea
And how it might taste
She is all hair and skin and teeth
A beautiful thing
WIth soft nerve endings
Hardly a poet, more of a poem

Though I have never tasted sea
I have tasted the gloss from the pages
Of magazines
They cut my tongue and my fingers
And if you were wondering
It tastes like glue and copper
Hardly like anything you'd imagine
Salty water

I imagine is sour
like a lemon
And sweet like a pear
And smells like dogs
And feels like skin
At least that's what I gather
From the stories we've all read

Our eyes are made of paper
All we really have are our fingers
And the spaces between our toes

There are things
that I cannot tell you
because
I am you.

Your shower curtain told me,
"The man who sold these faucets-
bought his daughter a dog and killed himself-
but that was when there were still toenails in our carpets"

You'll probably start at the beginning.