words

oblique evenings explain
the ribald path of my fire,
burning through city and country
alike and indifferent
and all a means to some end
that cannot be immediately identified,
i watch the slow drip of kidney expulsion
and kind eyed acceptance, a cycle of passage,
this moment through to the beginning of the next.

whiskey sweat, a hot wet malignancy
wherein there exists a motion of hand to glass,
glass to lips, liquid to throat
and throat to soul,
murky embers to keep the night igneous,
to keep the day rolling and clean, neat.

i am the father’s regret, his waste,
never what the lineage pronounced
but enough to keep the flame alive,
a white rival to moonlight,
a madness kept in bullet hearts
released in smoke and blood.

-S.C. Martinez