There’s a small tick
at the corner of your mouth
where it plummets into sadness
muscles dropped beneath the skin
stretching each and every year
to a sculpture wrought with slackness.

Here the lines are sharp engrained
like paper mache puppets
telling us just where you’ve been
and how the weather lashed you.

Shadows writhe on city streets
but you hold the smell of mountains
sky so blue you filched the tint
leaving us staring into darkness

There’s a small tear in your side
we’re not talking blood of Christ:
after the Ave Marias
no holy water can assuage your thirst
and the two robbers on either side
simply take up space.

Perfumed oils
heat of desert sun
cacophany of tombs
revisiting my lost extension.