slit the fine throats of 29 years
on the 29th day
hear the pistol bay
see the bullets bite
survive the 29th day
just to be lost to the 29th night
the first lightning is coming down
coming down
but the bird is born
when it touches ground
they all laid down to die on the 29th day
heat smothers
and murder is a spike driven into the heart of obsession
as two queens held hands, and disappeared
I fear that I’ll be lost to the 29th day
just as they were lost to the years
when the swan dies
when it’s star explodes
the night will split
and I will slip behind the benevolent mother
whose daughters were gagged, and bound, and bled
upon an altar of furnaces, and smokestacks
my 29 sisters
my 29 lovers
fell on the worst of all daggers
and were lost to the 29th day
the toll for heat is high
the price of war is opium
and the ocean strikes back with an ugly fist
yet in tenderness carries so many
on the tide of it’s wrists
to rest gently with silt, and a lightless weight
that clasps them to her benthic breast
I fear for the men who cross oceans on the 29th day
I fear for the atom that is broken, and bleeds winter on the 29th day
and the men who steal dirt, to bury their saints
for the drowning buildings, and the starving homes
for those who sat down at tables dressed in rags
to a meal of mud, and wood, and bone, bread of stone, and wine of discord that only fed despair
men fell but were stopped before reaching the ground
their seed spilling out without making a sound
two sisters of perfect invention forged a bond of perfect destruction
that was severed on the 29th day
the first lightning came down
melted sand into glass
burned shadows to ash
and all skin was dusted in grey
I came, and I stood on the grave of the summer
and I was lost on the 29th day