from “Lonesome Poem”

from “Lonesome Poem”

By Ross Robbins

Until clouds turn
black. Drizzle ink
burn holes through
         mums.
Until the drips
of graffiti join
hands, crumble

      the city

            *
                   scintilla
           of petal
    or sliver
of plant
                    caress
                  what flower
                  is offered
                         to you
the world
         gets soft
         gets cool
         gets gone

*

Sweet as hair. Fizzy as wet glass.
Bleeding on a school bus. Buttery
like a fat woman’s heart. Not some
self-same suck maid. Erotic like

soccer socks. Needy like a rich man.
Gentle like a weird hat. Sensible
like a scar. In the event of an
emergency. Soft-spoken like
a metal thermos in the hands of a boy
with dark brown hair. Trying real hard
to come to a point. Insinuating nothing,
but meaning everything. Show me
how you touch yourself. Private as milk.
It’s been a while since your last haircut.
Your neck is furry. I’d make your neck wet.
                *

someone’s rolled
the tobacco out
from mostly-smoked
butts, left the black-
edged papers on the floor
of the bus. Again, tonight
I will sleep alone.

                *

The city is
grey in its
choking of green

I went to a park
where the grass
was stone

On my back
all the clouds
were countries

Without a name
I am just
a body