For Arrick


I saw you gaze through the brown
     spiral eyelash triage, each ray
filmed in shadow,
     bleeds to the helix at the center,
a mirror's dark black hole
     pulling you down
into your shut-down heart.

The owl's head of double arms & legs
     gyrate at the mirror's oval edge.
You wanted arteries of red & gold,
     not candy apples.
You knew the ant that crawled on your arm
     did not care
how the body burns like the sun on the horizon.
     You walked the blacker grass.

How was it the blues got down
     so low you could not rise above them,
shrunk so far within,
     the body a long shadow, days
dark for miles;
     those cocaine voices
rushed you away for years

     to where life's last instant
turned in on itself:
     (bulletkillingcarcrashing).
For too long you hoarded
     two dollar bills of nothing
like the no-light forest
     triple canopy of grief,
your life-song;
     this hazy light, your sorrow.