yo-yo #76: 'tomoe'

the toy spins
licked by the fire of innocent skin
its whisper-whir breathes
with the hum of free dragonflies
its coils caress
the memory of all summers
intimacies of wood and twine-
young things twirl while
old things remember
drunk in the perfume-haze
of unlocking july
our boy assumes the stars
will turn for him, for ever

but years protrude
like brambles, bloodsharp
as by demons coaxed
from calloused earth
hard work to buy the ground
and hard tools to work it
so joy-like pus
oozes now from drycracked hands
cherished toys are hawked or locked
into dust-colored boxes
there was no then, it seems
and tomorrow is today plus
one more little death
space-dreams and useless loves
must go to seed

with the insignificance and fury
of sodacan explosions
boys die boys-
and fool-men pray on gravel-knees
toward wealthy gods
and candy whores
the wheels of want
turn too, but with an angry noise
all walls and teeth
the song of iron
makes real the sin and stutter of alive
the last electric ghost of childhood
is drowned beneath boot-rhythms
there is no twine which will not rot
there are no toys in hell

all fallendown his warm
blood now imbibed by foreign grass
no boys are left
to whom he might bequeath a box
the artifacts of a september breeze
a ticket stub, now leathersoft
a ribbon soaked with brown-hair smell
a photograph of smilelines and trees
a spinning top (which seemed to breathe
one afternoon
before the water stank with hate)
the world ago
all lost and scattered
waspwings crushed by winter

every thing waits
the air inhales-

-then nervous bird hands
black with pain, white with hunger
past an inch of worms and dreams
explore the soil of tragic lands
find now the so-neglected
toy all mangle-stained
with dirt and days etched deep
with writhing scars-
and tiny joys
all still caressed (they do not fade)
the tapestries of innocence
the shadows of a hopeful heart

mend now the broken world, our girl
please spin (again) the stars