a tracing

youngest child
coughing in his sleep

stores all bleeding neon,
but seen from a distance

five miles,
ten,
then out to where
county line road loses its way

christmas lights on
rusting trailers

my mother’s house, and
then the one that
burned down three years ago

the smell of ghosts

whisper of airplanes

it took me a while to
get the hang of
running away