Here I am again,
time-stamped expired,
a sour emulsion,
like an ashtray wish
rising up from
beneath the irises.
Even the moon
forgets to pirouette,
her hollow bones
nailed to the souls
of so many tree stumps.
In the barren forest,
I found a corpse
under a great mound of mulch,
life nibbled away,
as ugly as any,
but I took the
ring off your finger,
dropped it down the
well of my throat and
let it choke
the remaining breath
I could never seem to locate.
Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and the author of four books, most recently the story collection, This is Why I Need You, out now from Ravenna Press. You can find more of his writing at https://lenkuntz.blogspot.com.