Heartlines

If I should die before I wake, lay me ‘neath

a tree where lichen grows in whiskers, for I

fell in love with a stubbled chin that trailed

the forest across my collar, up-over my mounds,

and no one was allowed to cut pink slippers, he said,

around here, the Lady is scarce as hen’s teeth

to hear it mark your drums with turpentine, but

did it make sense to recluse into romance, to build

a sound heart for two?