blood / mouth

lonely mouth shapeshifts into icicle, and another reluctant tear drinks itself to sleep. somehow, old bones steel themselves numb in face of granite, blue-bottle granite. i am in the throes of solemn desolation; none of my hollow frivolousness is an admission of guilt, or perhaps worse; despair.
this is a word. this is another. these are letters stuck between rheumatic teeth. God, how good, how great, how limp my heart, how struck dog my chest. the prayers have soldered themselves on the roof of my mouth; puppet-master singing, puppet-master selling my tongue by the pound five times a day. who am i if not unholy pieces of skin? who am i if not setting places of worship ablaze? who am i if not counterfeit plaster saint?
what surreptitious silences. so much abomination pressed into degloved bone compartment. bullet shell cosmetics. my gnarled frame, hem of the universe. my gnarled frame, hem of the universe.