i.
Your mouth follows me, city
to city. I don't know how it
keeps up, but sometimes
it even beats me there.

It's not your shadow I'm
afraid of. Your make is
more dark than light and
I'm used to that truth.

But your mouth's
a void, always
telling me
no.

There's the no
boxed in, carted
from state to state
and friendless.

There's the no
torn in pieces,
then sewn up to
look more like silence.

There's the no
sent to bed with
kisses vacant and cold,
the aftertaste of a fire.

There's the no
tip
toeing
down
the family throat,
shaped like a yes.

ii.
Your mouth follows me, contagious
with your childhood, your mother,
your damage dropped
back against dark water.

If this was science fiction
I would understand why
you never believe me,
why you lie. I would be
the alien race - father,
mother, daughter, son;
and you'd understand
not one of us.

Your mouth the destroyer
the boy always
waiting
for the wrong kind of love.

iii.
Your mouth follows me
sometimes worst of all
in silence.

But I can adapt.

See, I wrote you letters, I
wrote you bibles, I
wrote you songs and
still,
nothing.

Letters Januaryed and Decembered,
swallowed with a hand to keep them down.
I'm sorry
it took me so long to
remember how to say
hello.


iv.
Your mouth follows me.
I've tried talking back but
even the truth gets in my way.
Last time I reminded you:
once you took in some
baby raccoons. You know
the way you looked at them?
It's how I knew you could love
something, and something was
better than nothing until I realized
I was jealous of raccoons.

v.
Your mouth follows me,
tells the bedtime story of the person
you always knew I'd become, the
precision of the sharp right turn
on a deadman's curve falling apart.