HOSTILE MEET

The elms, like stooped elders,
crowd the streetlight.
They’re all about tendriled benediction.
A face is forced in harsh relief.
It’s you, with a key, with a knife,
with an ointment for my knees
blown out during the last war
no one was told about.

I swallow the code entrusted to me.
I could slit throats with the shadows you make.
I’m waiting for your company, cuz
I can’t come apart.
A spore clutched in a fist, a loose thread.
You ring the bell. We’re about to start.