never let a minute

i fear rejection beneath my finger nails. 
can you see it? 
For years 
I've been 
digging it out, 
scrubbing haphazardly with little 
bubbles and bristles. 
But like the food residue
that cooks further and 
harder
onto your baking pan
every time you
agitate it 
with the hot water..

try being rejected 
so many 
times that
you become the 
worst kind of
prostitute, the
kind that 
claims she is free to be whoever she wants at anytime
like an evolved anomaly, but really
she is just
a vaporous postmodern spirit
with reflectors all around 
her, she glides shielded by
her mirror magic making
her just meaningless to a rational world
invisible ship in the sky.

Distance is the
smell 
of cherry pits on
the highway concrete dried by
the sun 
and 
gasoline.

Your heart beneath my temple and wayfaring
ear is the love I miss
is the salty clumped soil 
that bears cras hope and fear beneath
my fingernails when 
I work 
in the rock embroidered 
part of the garden that is kissed by 
beats of rainfall, 
like an old woman at your shrine
hunched in watch