Time-lapsed recorded leaves arc with the soft

Star-light, staining sills & stilling legs leaving 

REM,  as if performing the wave. 

********I haven’t slept

sober. My dreams continue their evenings without me

placing orange-laced-boy-shorts

on a bread-crumbed plate. 

********We need to spoon.

The REM-battered twist around each other

thirsty as the leaves recorded 

mid-afternoon falling beside the bed sheet, 

********as the sound of soft flushing

from a flight above. Their voices & waste are

a sweet interruption. We’ve moved the Russian doll

from the book case. Its succession of 

********wooden bodies sounded

like someone was knocking on the door when we stumbled

to piss at night. I miss the flutter. I miss the possibility

of shifting presence. The bodies are always

********sleeping in these poems with the same loss.

First was the imprint of a hand

Now my name is painted on three bridges

& deemed degenerate preservation. It’s no good. 

*

Patrick Redmond received his MFA at Brooklyn College. He currently teaches composition and creative writing at CUNY. Recent work may be found in The Hunger, Silver Pinions, Bomb Cyclone, Prelude, and elsewhere.