—IT’S LIKE TRYING TO DRINK WHISKEY FROM A BOTTLE OF WINE

                                     X is the Most Valuable Letter

The trees, stunned into submission, ask the wind why it’s stopped whirring, and the lake will no longer looks me in the eye. Every stranger I’ve never met is counting cards, counting days, ex-lovers and corpses. Through ashen glass, the cheapened rain stiches roadmaps for blind men while another rack of bones collapses. When the sparrows croak, Breathe, I uncoil and try to believe them. Somebody’s got a saber in their pocket with our DNA on it. I’ve got walls and a face I can’t touch. I’d sell my teeth for the correct answer, divert the deluded clouds for a chance to die like Scotch, neat, no ice. These days X is the most valuable letter. Still, the pen in my hand writes your name on repeat, like a prescription that’s forgot itself, or an illness no one can decode.