Changeling

Because he is an actor
he spends an extra moment with reflections,
licking ring and forefinger
saliva keeping a side-part from
caving carnal persuasion.

Paralysis: he is his own delirium snakebite
A cadaver
dancing on a stage in someone else’s window
when they spied him.
The hypnosis of a varnished politician
placed on a bench seat,
preened,
and shot (somewhere between jive and tango)

Because he had buried something here
long returning like a dog.
No.
He saw an angel once, at the height of a stairwell,
chained to its own decaying matter.
That’s what he was.
and sacrifice the threading of his chrysalis.

Because he had buried something here
in peppermint paradise
striped symbiotic swirls of vinyl siding and floral foliage
that a butterfly couldn’t cry for.

Kip-shuck.

A shovel trying rocks and rife,
his roots and the roots of a wood,
a red eyed face
and nothing more painful
than finding nothing.