3

The story of the nefarious fish,

Billy the Kid, memory number 34-

‘But was it you who had wore the everlasting gown of the heavens, doused in a trembling umbel of flowers?’

Turn the vase over and watch all the memories fall,

there is beauty in what survives.

I gave her the book of the grotesque in the parlor of the watercolor fishes-

someday my love we will visit behind the thick glass walls,

I have seen us walk there, hand in hand, it is not far off.

The steam billows above in tufts and I return from the alleys of a broken Kansas night.

I am here now and will remain,

even in the showers of all the burning coal and ashes.