I Say the Thing for the First Time

& there’s no taking it back now.
What comes next? Charcoal underbone,

darkroom for soliloquy & irises wide
at home. Some underside party popping

off & ending with me counting resignations
on a couch made from my last pennies—

copper profiles cushion deep, dull
with emancipation & worth almost me.

Button nicks instead of eyes. Green
patina instead of skin over presidential

profiles. How to separate these awkward
exhales from the marinating revivals?

The song in the park across the street
dials up something endless about love

& big sunflowers, but I can’t split
this primal reflection from its primary

leather. Sneakers & skeletons arrhythmic
in their leaving & squeaking: twisting

in somebody else’s garden in the middle
of a cracked city near a river so thick

with its own beat-up history, it’s already
eye level to the flocking blackbirds.