half life


1.

his truth has the shelf-life
of a six pack in an empty fridge
"i did not with that women" etc

truth evaporates
as he sweats it out
under inquiry less then grand
skirting falsehoods
with zippered lips
while in his chest he packs the one
image to damn up the rest
the one with headlights
the one of blinding glare
a storm of wings
gull or angel
he need not say
if he need not think

he bolts his hat on a boiling pot
freezes his heart and
zips it up in a lung

2.

it's a boundary between  heaven
and earth he thinks and in thinking
breaks the rule and betrays the border

truth is denigrated
chased like a skirt in callow times
pleated, hemmed,
hawed, pawed and pawned
for moments of cheated eternities
ripe with surprise and surprise
then when hauled
before the tribunal
in drag and in tatters
to be mute and full
of bulletholes

he conjures the light
and bolts feigning confusion
as to the direction of flight

3.

briefly abed a.m.
he lets memory back in
through the crack of dawn

truth crystalline
in liquid nitrogen sleeps
on the far side of light
in a tank an altered state
reduced to evidence
frozen into splinters
something hurts then
melts away when
you dig it out

a lock of hair
grows forensic
in a hidden fold