Before We Bed Down into Loves We Won’t Keep Long
Stevie Edwards
Our bones form a lean-to that can’t bear
the speed of any storm.
We are blown down on an El platform
that’s bent on shivering us away.
Our heels—hazardous beams tending
toward the tracks.
We’d be dancing alone against the wind
if not for each other.
We raise our heavenly bodies toward
the heat lamps of warming stations,
like the moths we’ve become,
busy eating the fabrics of our brains
with spliffs so loose we cough up
charred leaves, grind them in our teeth.
We are pests to ourselves—
covering our bodies with eggs of grief
that eat through our skins and hair,
leaving only bones, staggering stalks.
Somebody has thrown a Barbie
onto the third rail.
I can’t see her face against steel
but wonder—has it melted? or singed?
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