Grandma's Birthday

My lips sleep drier than lust

In the suave of sea-faring

Fearing less the roaring than the beast

That sickens from the little living

Of the dancing tables, the merrier dust

Encroaching past the highway's driveling

In a fragile revel, of smoke, mist, a must

Whitening the teeth of a naked ring

That tinges the chiaroscuro in the coast

With a mint feast in yellower soothing

Diving the lines of streets that roost

Beneath the wet earth wherefrom they cling

Onto a plate of broken china, apples, oats

To be devoured by the clean lines of a string

Extending from one thread of laundry to the other's mast

So shy, in clenched palettes, pregnant from bathing

In the mud-like ailments of the serene and the just

Unmaking the world's tissue, the Lord's issueing

Essaying on the fringes the fever of hope and host

With less care than movement, than freeing, than wrestling

Coming to rest in a cinnamon box, with glass, with yeast, moist

Overflowing from noise, erring, harvesting, mumbling

With less lips than tongue, screaming from the chest.