Shawn Arrajj
Cell Mate
long-walk home; I learn how to fly,
to let the kitchen fall, cell mate of the moonI listen to the footsteps of waitresses
who talk
nothingelsetodo.
to eat like a bird, I await
the depth of December when all the
stars,
the past,
both turn a privacy
of —
— into
front way South and leave it twisting
now sensing it’s The bird, walking
the dying death,
damnedest to reveal death as nothing
personal,
and of death profound.
empty water glasses.I sold August for a train escapade
and have a
shack that compels us
to think:
“silverware trashcan fires”
between spurts of rain. Turning the key
O,
within my prison
a name
for his tombstone. His hands now cold
as
June is the grooves beneath my shoes,my father recounted mine
as the single siren
that wails through the downpour.
Into believing the sky has limits.
the broken bottles in the basement of restaurant
or its
sometimes wise and monotonous hum of
ice-machine
follows me back up
Those stairs
sides,
sides,
all leading to the final
customer pause,
their e, forced –
that run-down about babies
because a cigarette,
while squirming on the sidewalk.new song from the apartment,
identical doors one night down Barbuda, the homeless
roasting
as it slowly turns to ice.
in one last try,
as a man staring forever
into paralyzing floor grime, falls
on his deathbed,
tries his I Did Not Know, and now it’sMarch, a prisoner has barred Out the
“here” – jail cell floor – and so long “For now,” I can only
sleep home for several hours;
before he died leaving
nothing behind amongst nothing
but a
month to rest headlights.January is life’s last few years,
a home
gives it all to song
a pond behind a run-down shack
in the woods where I spendhours
everyday—
obedient tongues and clinking
—
water, I’m tricked
