One summer night more than five years ago
the church across the street burned down.
You reached the end of the sky and pulled
out that short declarative sentence you kept
in the freezer for emergencies.

It was clear to me I was your parenthetical.
Even though I desired to be a Jack Kerouac
wild scream on the shore run-on sentence.

I sprinkled stardust any time an interrogative
appeared in the bedroom. I worried that
we would become undone before the final
sentence was written. How many cats were
there watching our shrinking paragraphs?

It is never easy reading what you can’t grasp.
Moonlight daydreams and rock ‘n roll afternoons become lost
in compound sentences and when the confusing
syntax rolls up the stairs all you have left is a closet
of old shoes and neck ties that you don’t wear anymore.

Ziggy the landlord once made this clear,
the door must open both ways into the
desire and out to the silence of the boneyard.
The windows need to be clear clean
clauses. That way you know who else
wants to share your story.