Piracy (at the graveside of the living I bury my poisoned thoughts)

I have prepared for their deaths for so long
That who is dead to me among the living no longer matters

As much as the living spark, like a match at the edge
Of a cigarette on a cold porch where the night

Before moving a couch pushed from the second
Floor window turned on its way down and landed

Half inside the window below. It stuck there
Like an impossible place. Those versions

Of my life thin enough to break on someone’s faith
Never broke my faith in them, in my versionless them.

It’s not up to me, the gangplank of the past
Keeps getting longer. The sea turns to grass,

The foam to the dirt I kick onto my buried selves,
Albatross to cricket, an old house creaking in the wind.