these rustling leaves come alive
binding earth to words, running wild in woods
the ghosts of trees in books

poetry tears the house down
make what you will
of the wreckage

This has happened before

He knows the ribbon of it,

the fluttering murmur of

her final breath that mouths

on earth is no abiding stay

all men must pass away.

and the refraction of its sin

when he says

Did I whiten you again?

allowing the ripple of his grief

to frame its recollection.

And now remembered

it seems so ancient an event,

that for one long echo

time might stop;

and recommence

in the forgetting

of pitch and sprocket,

or at least hold still long enough

that he can splice

and better understand it.

The dead’s final gift to the living,

this swoop of sorrow,

the violence that Spring wraps tight.

“What makes a star?” he asks

knowing that everybody has a plan

until they get punched in the face.

So hit me again,

ruin my body for

the pleasure of others.

Knock me unconscious with

a sucker punch I won’t

remember having thrown

…and then come round

in a yellowing delete and

the close-eyed,

bruised acceptance

that the kid I once knew

who was up for the fight,

is now composing himself,

broken knuckled,

ready to be captured

by the camera’s empty promise.

The body I once owned

giving itself up to the star

I thought it might become.

you had a fever
rambling hot then cold
just crying wolf, you'd say
before hallucinating again
at the dark
come to swallow you whole

left buried under rotten bark
leaf mould and shadow flit
for an everafter of birds flying south
for the winter

small hour memories
of childhood corridors
from witches in the rafters
to lovers, spied in keyholes,
full of grief and laughter