All my friends are
made crystal. Their lights
dance on their eyes around combs of dirt-
they mound more graves. This dirt, atop
their heads, stir melting ice cream ponds
dripping against the stiffed frailness
of crystalline coney island sparkle. Mounds
and mounds, uncharred by time’s bitter tounge
or the 25 years at the factory by their daddies
and their grandaddies. They’re buried
upside down, their souls rooting beneath
evenly and logically spread earth.
I remember the sparkle, 1,000 years
since its grace bled me dry and salted my veins- back when the cold
forced warm bodies together, and we were there, our hearts pumping
ether dripping sweat
beading on our wrists. And we’d taste eachother
until the call would come to join
the others braving arctic, tear-freezing bliss. Hours would pass
by without the thought of death, the terrordread
of everyday, everyday, life.
Not here. Here, we’d make believe
that summer would never come, that the crystallized
starlight on our tongues and under our boots
would never abandon us.
Not anymore. What used to be
in our eyes has only dimmed this winter,
our friends hardnened by stone icicles
having no interest in our old game. They buried themselves
away from our house, miles away from our house, heads facing Earth’s center,
feet reaching for blue sky
but, but, finding only grainy earth to squish between toes.
No more sparkle. No more sparkle. We’re crystal now.