even now, the memories of yesterday  
cold and grey emerge from cracks and walls  
like ghosts who seek for no final soft places.  

there are words, and there are none
as you go back to the coffin house:  

where among warm corpses you have to endure  
the long and slow dance of night and day  

while breathing the air filled with words and voices
blooming from tongues soaked in poison and ash,  

may you return like a flower  
with the memory and hunger
for the firelight of stars and comets.

does something remain
when one is leaving?
what goes away, from and to where
when one chooses to stay?*

lost in these preoccupations,
between drowning in coffee
raising hope like blue smoke
twirl before blown and fade,
i find myself seeking refuge
in secrets and mysteries:

i discover a world born
between leaving and staying:
the shape  of words spoken
and thoughts hoarded more than gold

every day i find new questions
whose answers belong to the night

i know that i do not know
while daylight dims, pressed,
until there is only everything
holding nothing.

from the sea comes
not only the ceaseless fury
of waves  embracing stone:
from its deep where secrets lie
to the source and color of the sky,
one can wade, stroke and swim
to come to its shifting sands
virginal for four feet and four hands.

i have been here, and you there:
the days between us shuffled like cards.
perhaps fate will deal us a full house:
a pair with a heart and a trio of aces
for the words we ached yet stilled
our tongues to shape and caress.

wiser in the fictions of affections,
we proclaim the distance as breadth
where we shall sow the promise
for the season of toil and harvest.

i confess it takes
one word from you
to touch me still
while the world grows silence
until there is only you
and your word

blood surges like lava once more
to my dormant volcanic heart

still, i am wise and realize
your word from the recipe for surprise:
the season of silence and absence
ripened time and choice words
in the garden of our distance
into this fruit, plucked harvest

i am not a magus, only an alchemist
as i decipher the chemicals and elements
trace parts and exact measures
as i draw symbols and mental lines
for the ritual to transform your surprise
to reveal the face and name that it hides

because your words are not you
nor am i the words i reply
laced with a chameleon’s skin
for the end that has happened,
for the new season that reins
this naked earth and sky

after everything,
this is why i still love you,
how you now fall:

*gentle, as if like lips imitating fingers
tracing a calligraphy of desire
or the contact of soft fingers
like ripe lips whose kisses call forth
more than just warmth as blood surges
to answer every delicate and naked pore
awakened by your slow seduction
into an incessant rhythmic foreplay
between your ice and my fire.

as my memory shift
to drift on towards sleep,
tired as aching bones
wrapped in numb flesh
from too long waiting
in the soft places you
now claim for your absence,
i wonder at the memory
of memory:

of the season when and if they forget,
if longing’s swift and silent arrow
find its mark true and through,

and if they know of regret.

almost always
in the aftermath of found love
blown and lost to the winds
everything suffocates:
even the sunlight of noon pales
the surface of things laced in grey
ashes gather in my pockets
films and coats my eyes
like a monocle
to reveal the ghosts
rising from memory.

but not now, not
with my memories of you

instead the light is a sharp blade
revealing surface and edges
your feminine form
touched and infused
with a certain clarity
vibrant even in your absence

the wind is not silent nor howls
between its folds a certain fragrance
like from a flower with petals unfolding
rises to claim and roam
every inch and pore
naked and empty, waiting

then it comes to me:
no ghost rise even in your absence
because you are out there, somewhere
where wind, light, and sound touch you
the same wind, light, and sound
who claims earth, sea, and sky

as they touch me.