I opened the curtain and smiled.
“Good morning, Friday!”

On my early walk, I smiled 
at the mourning dove strutting
in front of me, its wings whistling
as it flew away.

A most delightful grin
spread across my face when,
at first glance, a small
leaf appeared to be a toad.

I smiled at the bicyclist,
then I smiled at the squirrel
scrambling to get out of his way.

And other people who also
enjoy an early morning walk -
I smiled at them, too.

The voice is heard, Jenny are you there? 
The T.V.’s still on with it’s commercials. 
The children ain’t crying only the dog is sighing, 
She said she would leave but this isn’t a rehearsal.

I ride out to her mother’s gray house, 
Her car is parked but no sign of any other, 
Walking around back where her footprints are fresh, 
Her father in tears tells me “don’t bother.”

Like every change that came before

it could not be done, consensus said;

pyramids and ships, Columbus,

planes and moon landings,

the attributes of birds and animals,

transferred to humans –

Gaudi buildings and surgeons’ tools

designed on snake bodies,

sonar and ultrasound from bats,

sharkskin swimmers,

glueless gecko pads for climbers,

eagles’ sight attached to human eyes

and wing-suit flight

down miles of mountain,

glider-possum style.

Now reverse transference -

The gold sun fractures against the glass,
I sink into velvet, heavy and deep.
Where the barbed edges of the hours pass,
I surrender my bones to the venom of sleep.
 
I sink into velvet, heavy and deep,
as the walls dissolve into violet mist.
I surrender my bones to the venom of sleep,
leaving a world that I barely missed.
 
As the walls dissolve into violet mist,
pulse-tides surge through my mind.
Leaving a world that I barely missed,
where the clocks of reality shatter and grind.
 
Pulse-tides surge through my mind,

Cold and desperate hungry and alone.The heat is off and no one's home.There's no food in the cupboard , no socks or shoes for my feet , but there's guns and drugs and homeless sexual deviant predators , trolling my street. 

Only 8 years old when I learned, sometimes even the good guys are bad. And if you get caught talking to the wrong crooked cop, you'll end up a corpse stuffed in a bag. 

Dumped in the Mississippi or left in the alley. Another casualty of society, a nameless faceless, nobody just another Cold Case to be forgotten.