Kristen de Kline # 222 Lakeside at dusk

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Lakeside at dusk
between kisses and cigarettes

ducks on the water
look blurry, as if somebody

is playing with the focus knob
across a jelly-like surface

you watch them glide
brittle like synthetic ice

cut it, you shout, with a knife
car headlights in the darkness

I've never seen so much blood
tyres, slowly burn

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you didn't die
when you were meant to

that happens (you know)

they all came, your friends
bearing gifts like three wise men:

a sketch block, Staedtler pencils
a carton of Winfield Blues

and Bukowski, of course,
at least five different editions

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under the apple trees at Cherry Farm
you watch me trace
the falling stars      shooting
across paper leaves

I sketch a succession
of hanging bodies,
suspended
from scaffolds,
hurriedly built

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every corpse, it
leaves a poem
behind

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scribbled lines
snatched kisses
another pound of flesh
it burns a (w)hole
in my heart