The air is a velvet rope, coiled tight ’round my chest.
Breath unspools silver wire, threading ribs,
tugging my spine toward a fluorescent stage.

Copper lingers on the wind —
the breath of oilfields through my cracked lips,
asphalt syrup pooling on the horizon.
Cacti lean like drunken barons,
their spines dusted with forgotten sermons.

I dream of a mesquite podium
where success dangles like a garnet pendant,
swinging slow before glassy eyes.
My voice spills thick as motor oil,
staining sand, staining sky.

Tonight, the moon bleeds —
under the menstruating moon —
a crimson porthole in heaven’s stern.
Clouds press like gauze to her wound,
dripping slow over corrugated roofs
where lovers scald their skin on steel.

I want that burn — iron heat —
fingernails like rust scraping flesh.
Hunger flares, an ember spitting sparks
that scald my palms.

“Texas tonight,” I mutter to no one,
feet tracing armadillo bones.
A thirst swells in my chest —
dry whiskey drowning in its own glass.
I ache for asphalt thighs,
the tar-scented warmth of a body
that smells like sage and gasoline.

A tumbleweed scuttles by — a dry skull of twigs —
and I wonder if success is just a fistful of air,
a voice locked in a payphone,
whispering promises to a receiver gone cold.

Still, I walk toward the red wound in the sky,
the bleeding eye that watches and waits —
aching to be seen, aching to be kissed,
aching to be whole beneath my hands.