Overgrowth of a Holiday

i will
calculate
the happiness
of
jailbirds
by
the number of teeth
or,
spaces
where teeth were,
filling
a smile.

and i will
love
an oral history
of love
better
than the children
born of it;
love love's
first
and only hours;
eternal and brief;
unmortified.

and,
if you
border on twilight
like a dismal uniform will,
you are the horizon
hung from shade; a
woodsman
hacking
at a hollow
tree fallen
mossy with
years. and i

live deep inside.
celebrations,
spilling all over.
myself,
counting
the dark splinters
that fly.

–Livio Farallo

Livio Farallo is a co-editor of Slipstream. His work has appeared in north Dakota Quarterly, South Florida Poetry Journal, California Quarterly, The Cardiff Review, Blotter, and elsewhere.