rust

broken glass 
bit ankles 

& we watched the rust
as it made its
way up our forearms

the trail up
the street from
your house in muhlenberg
became part of our bodies--

come march 
we went to check on
our cold spring thawed blood--

the mulberries blistering 
from trees above
would soon fall & become
mush on the asphalt--

you'd make me eat them
& i'd wonder if they 
were poison

the romance of eating 
poison berries
with a young lover

i remember what our
theater director
said about juliet 
being the smartest 
person of any shakespeare play

i see her in me

shoo-ing invisible boys
from her windowsill like gnats

you kissed me like a handful
of gravel & i loved
the grit of your teeth--

we made skeletons 
outside ourselves--

tattooed the elderly 
trees with our names
so that they wouldn't 
be allowed to forget
the three springs we
spent with them--

or were we both romeo?

with our tendencies for poison--

i think we all are to a degree--

falling in love with the idea
of beautiful girls in ourselves
or others--

were there beautiful girls 
in the broken glass 
of the factory building?

the one by the trail--
surrounded by a brush & 
man-made stones

we would walk there to
take pictures with our cell phone
cameras--

broken glass beneath shoes 

untamed wires frayed 
on the cement ground

we took one of us kissing
as the light smirked in
the hole in the roof

a red rusted silo burst with 
dandelion heads

yesterday you said

why can't we just let 
them be flowers?

& i felt their seeds
in my throat-- 

cropping 
up like unwanted babies--

their pinkish fingers
pulling my tongue--

the whole factory was
infected with weeds
& then infected with us

what did they used to make there?

even in the back rooms we never found
any evidence of what the vast
carcass of a building had been
used for--

a 7-UP bottle from 1983

a filing cabinet desperately empty
one drawer bent open as if
its jaw bone were ripped
from skin--

we didn't take anyone else
there-- 

just me & you & the way
the window made the factory's body
scream--

occasionally more of
the ceiling would fall when 
we were there--

or was it the sky?

poison raining with
the mulberries--

we were virus in the legs
of the trees--
ringworms or maybe
parasitic like ticks--

i wore mosquito bites
for you like a charm bracelet--

i haven't gone back

maybe they tore the whole
thing down or
maybe at night
the factory gets to work--

lights bleary 
as the sun dandelion growls 
to sleep

have you gone back there
without me?

is there rust
left in you?