Lingering

Heavy, now, with stuttered steps
a syncopation of slip drag stick
and

Humming in the slightest shadows
hovering under frequencies tense
beneath the threshold of perception
beneath the warmth of a small hand
left like a paperweight
heavy as the last dark before birds
wake and warble

if the weather changed
if the slip slacked, stuttered

what make we of this? Which of these sentences tangle into the
triptych of turnkey pleasures, into the catacomb of cordial tongues,
into the tak-tak of skull thunder where each of these sentences tangle?

Another thrum modulates listening ear
more cracks than solid stones
A gore ring wraps, wrenches each
tone from tongue, each clipped
consonant from cut lip, each
drop of blood flecked from
chapped and charred mouths
menacing the crimson ground
till it is one mouth
one maw