The rain slides down the canvas, mixing sweet
And pungent on the hems of silken cloth
As we forsake our innocence; betroth
Yourself to jasmine, only darkness sees
Your nakedness. Oh Layla, born of Nyx,
I fall before you, servant of your eyes,
Your lips, your honeyed tongue, your supple thighs.
I wrap you in the brightening sky, affix
The moon as it fades, and comb your tresses
With mountain peaks. Forgive the sun its light,
For while night-oaths are purest, there is deep
Authority in day-made promises.
I’ll lie, bask in your grace, your acolyte
Until the stars depart for endless sleep.

Watch the rain shatter on the ground
Or crash against the windowpane;
Lightning on the glass or maybe
Just the porchlight burning wetly,
Swarmed by insects searching, desperate
For stars they can no longer see.

Watch the hair shatter on the floor,
Dead strands containing memories
Swept thoughtlessly into the trash
Amid strands from other lives, tangled
Together; books stacked on bookshelves
With lives that can no longer be.

The ash and brimstone might have tasted sweet
Amid the harsher fragrances of hope
That bloom like lilies, lucent on faint slopes,
And root themselves in sinless psyches deep.
I heard those vile unchaste murmurs slide
In through the gate, where purer flowers hung,
Enwrought with ancient banes in ancient tongues:
The doors to Hell remain secured with pride.
      As Parthenos in Athens she was known,
      So oathless Devil shall in Hades reign.
      Beyond the depths that man can fathom rests
      The starkest palace, laid with mica stone;
      Yet in his kingdom lies a fertile plain,
      And in its soil faith may effloresce.

Raindrops crystallize a mass of dark, dulled ice that
Collects like a winter coat on the windshield of
The old, sky blue Chevy something that used to be
My dad’s and was my uncle’s before that. I can
See every year of this truck in the scratches and
Stains on the seats and the ash from a thousand old
Cigarettes. But I can’t see that now because it’s
Hidden deep in a cold cocoon that hides the rust
And the telephone pole dings and that one time my
Drunk cousin clipped a deer and broke off the side mirror
And the spare tire in the back that’s already
Flat. But it almost looks like it could be brand new.

I flick the ash off the tip of the cigarette
That I almost forgot about in the pitter
Patter of the flood from the sky. I don’t really
Smoke, it’s just an excuse to hold a flame in my
Frozen hands when I’m waiting for a bus because
The gasket’s blown or some **** that costs a thousand
Bucks or maybe four hundred but it’s all the same
When you don’t have it and when they say it doesn’t
Matter, it’s totaled anyway; but that truck is
The only home I thought we’d never leave. I pull
Down the gate despite the cold and the rain and haul
Myself up and kick my legs, pants soaking, thinking.

I remember, even though I shouldn’t, one night
Almost twenty years ago, we piled into
That truck and went out to the lake in the middle
Of the night and we covered the picnic tables
With thread-bare comforters and we lay back and watched
A comet streak across the sky as the sun came
Up. It glinted off the crystal windows brighter
Than the light off the lake, brighter than the mud and
Dust could tarnish, brighter than the years could ever
Fade. I lie back, my hair sticks to the tarp as my
Cigarette burns out. I can’t see the stars past the
Clouds, but I might, if I close my eyes, see the sun.

There is no yesterday, no tomorrow;
We can’t afford the sheen of memory—
I like my waters fractured and disturbed,
Lost in the riptide and the firmament.
Horizons fall in tepid confusion,
And there we find myself adrift, ensnared
By grasping stars you pinned on rigid domes
To spite their avarice.

I miss the void, before cruel time arose,
Where every touch beheld eternity
And every tear fleeting, illusory.
You think I envy you, but my sin sings
In liminality, strewn between grace
And sacred sorrow; for humanity
Is wiser than angels ken, yet still rent
Before sublimity.

We bleed fragility, as if the skies
Were lighted so we could see our steadfast
Limitations, could feel infinity
In a mortal raindrop, before the earth
Destroys its radiance without a thought.
And you, remote as pitiless starlight,
Won’t take my soul although I plead for peace.
Why can’t I just not feel?

I cannot change empyreal fate, but you
Invade the false paradise in my mind,
Burn away the self-deception, reveal
The barren cliffs that pierce my delusions;
Leave me bare, naked as the damnèd souls
That realize their guilt, and pave the path
To cold salvation. Your caress will rend
That which I thought I was.

    I shatter at your fingertips, alone:
    Please, I’ll do anything. Don’t let me fall;
    It’s too far, I can’t. I can’t. But your wings,
    Shredded by my fears, ours, melt with the sun.
    We land together; my back, my soul, breaks.
    From dust I came, to ashes we return.

She took off with a shudder—
Flustered little black-winged bird,
Feathers rippling in beaten rain.
I watched her leave her sanctuary,
Aloft for purer climes, the shock
Of sanguine breast and belly pale
Against the storm clouds drifting
Down barren mountains, dumping
All their gathered life at the roots:
Dread offerings that rise as smoke.

There’s a stillness in the grief before grief;
An impassive mason laying his bricks
Around your heart, slapping down the mortar
Of thickened, gluey tears that you won’t shed
Since nothing’s happened yet. There’s only dust
And a deep dizzying void; you can’t help
But stare down into that bitter luster
That burns your eyes—you cannot look away,
Nor can you help yourself toeing the edge
And wondering how it’ll feel to fall.