I taste a cavity & pull a string

against a door-hinge. Open up the wound:

a code we switched into our stitches, mouth

of silent partner in the filmy creek

bed rise: the lake keeps turning over, taste

of faucet, running spout & sprout of green

between my pockets, algal blooms of gums

& money, cheap as talk of river running

a poker game to bet on water bills:

you always have to pay to play. These days,

they call me by the hour. Reputation

precedes me down the road like a parade.

Who won’t play god against the moon’s back drop

another silver screen of phases full

as fathers’ pocket knives: the shoulder blades

all taste like lakes turned over in the dark.

No quench like tapping water in the brain

to turn the body off. Unplug the wire.

Tornado coming up for air again.

They called me Taz back when. I came around

to kick up dust but never left a thing

but wake. Another day spinning the doors

revolver like a top, heaven’s glass ceiling

my head was trapped against. Too smashed, I caught

a charge despite unplugging wire. Chemical

imbalance of a dare: no devil’s there.