He smiles with the graces of crumbling eyebrows,
with wit, megalithic in the cavern behind
his unformed eyes; i lowered mine, seeking
elsewhere—that here as i sleep, he is formed
from half memory.

The better part of me
remembers him in increments, steadily handed

our orchard, our healthy fruit. His arms overladen
with fibrous molten undulating movement,
a cacophonous cocoon for my madness’

half love. The truer part of me
remembers him as mountainous, thunderous,
a storm eating into the distances. arms
kneading throughout time, becoming. stone.

a dimple of great sadness yawns wide,
a timid fawn, eyes and ears small pearls

and it exists only in my body, mourning
lethargy. morning becomes lethargy,
a heavy predator. without commander
or command, it commences. flowering
into living sleep, i obey, when it beckons

primordially. the sky’s cerulean fingers
all sag. backwardly, blossoming
into muteness, all color
is fed to the inescapable

darkness. hand-fed inwardly, it is a gaping
thirst in the sea of unquenchable
hunger. i do not love it; it mimics

moonlight. the limpid doe,
a crystalline annihilator,

havocs the flower
to furlough the meadow
into the silence,
and into the black.