Long March

Your feet tangle the grass as the sky shudders

a song of Pop Rocks and asbestos hallways. Nicole,

this is this the shape of me: a mimic octopus

backed into a corner. A coroner with no bodies.

I couldn’t produce the fangs I needed myself to have

but I remember the fireflies coruscating in your collar bones.

And I always said I’d take this torch to Chicago’s

straw titans, but the fires never broke out of my night light.

I know the moon is just a reflection of your fingernails.

I know the oceans would obey me if I had any commands to give.

My epitaph, Nicole, is written in the long

march of the wrong stars.