the fault lines in your face shudder into a smile. the worry in your cheeks spreads out like the folds of your mother's pink dress; your tafeta skin, so expertly carved by times when your blood rushed up from your heart-- you blushed so perfectly for the cameras in your lovers eyes. They flashed and clicked and drew you in, every color.

Oh, honey I've framed you so patiently in my memory, the glass between usis nearly invisible. The words on your lips come back incomprehensible. Oh, honey, won't you sing for me, something I know, some Victrolla melody carefully composed in June 1917 when dear Thomas Edison decoded its mystery. When all of your notes are sung, and strung through harps of teeth and tongue.

The sun from the west willpass over the boundaries of sweet California and we'll see again. It will burn off our cataracts and we'll see again.

The surgeons will come with the clean, gleaming scissors and sutures will hide what they've removed- the sadness that never looked good on you. The sheet with which history's covered you. The smile that never hung right on you. Oh, honey, won't you say "goodbye" to the medicine you pour in (un)healthy doses prescribed by your misery and the late hours you keep.

keep me, keep me around. I'll keep you alive. I'll take breath for both of us, pumping your heart with my hand in your chest.