Erased Like Perfect

Erased Like Perfect

thursday morning again,
aluminum-green and matted,
dead though listening for sophia
to click-step the short hall,
orange and erased like perfect pacifism.

she won’t come again after today,
vein-gnawed and mealy,
ceramic-yellow,
hum-broke/plaster/wounded.
i will miss her.

thomas called at 9, his voice thimble-bushed,
hazel-doored noise murdering
simple words in machine-red rows.

he asked what i was reading.
i answered honestly; myself, sophia and cigarette packs,
things that taste like almonds and warm glass.

sophia, you have gone, your winter-mouth
is pouring chicken bones---
your lovers are drowning;
i am crying in your sizzle-blue ears,
listening to beautiful violent colors
of your wrist-snap literature.

(First published in my chapbook, Two Strophes for a Stain Bleeds Her Lover, co-written with C.E. Laine, published through Little Poem Press, Oct. 2006. (C) Michael Paul Ladanyi.)