is every word is a small step taken
away from you that arcs back to me like

a mamba’s mouth. I’m not going around
in place so much as running in circles.

You can see my devilry here. You are
the truth here and that makes me the lie. You’re

new morning. I’m much, much more sleep. You’re birds.
I’m bats. You awaken while I cry in

my sleepwalking state. Every single word.
No matter what I write. You’re laughter. I’m

floorboards. I want to be all of the stars
for once. You’ve already got that covered.

Then I’ll take the white wafting flowers that
blow down by the lake like summer’s curtains.

No, you’ll have every petal, every drop
of lake, even the differing winds. Well

then I place this poem high on branches
of pine among a hundred branches of

pine. But no. Clouds are your closed eyelashes.
I know that when you open them again

I’ll fall away into a nothingness.
Your skin’s what I’ll breathe if I breathe at all.

———-

Bio: Darryl Price was educated at Thomas More College. A founding member of Jack Roth’s Yellow Pages Poets, he’s published dozens of chapbooks, poems have appeared in many journals,including Pudding,The Bitter Oleander,Cornfield Review,Allegany Poetry,Out of Sight,Fireweed,Paper Radio,The West Conscious Review, Four Paper Letters,LITSNACK,Ramshackle Review,Metazen,Prick of the Spindle,Blue Five Notebook,Istanbul Literary Review,THIS,and Camel Saloon.He is a member of Fictionaut writers community blog(http://www.fictionaut.com/users/darryl-price).