the ants sing in traps
of fallen brown and all
these crazy winds dance
a blind ballet of coded
circles so rain constant
washes us in a dark baptism
when I clutch your hand
I feel small bones under
your skin, light as a bird,
made warm by the running
days, the last summer

a move of broken glass
black as polished leather,
burnt wood, the big shifter

that trembles steel under us,
the horizon hides, above
a curtain made of holes

with stars around as the
lost language of wind,
howls of salt, tide of night

as stopped as the silence after
a crash, you work through
the snow, the pines serious

and watching, you stumble disjointed,
unhealed. The clockwork slows
and suffers the pain of cold water,

for your eyes are shaded in
the ice-light, blue and unforgiving
as the wind gets harsher

Old is the small of lavender,
washed faces, the dust brown
of waxed furniture, bouquets

of veined hands that hide pearls
in indian boxes, alongside cameras
that fled across years, heavy-eyed ;

then there is you, the way you change,
you are half of these years, not just
the ebb, but a wave never slight.

As fingers stretch into the lesser known
                   slate slides into salt,
                   we are stranded in an half life
                   of stone that rolls down ice.

Mist forces us apart,
                  the rain makes us temporal,
                  the sky is as pale as a bloodless girl
                  forcing our steps to quicken.

The North tells me,
                 this is a leaving on a seagull's flight,
                 steps on an artic bridge,
                 a change of tides, and at last,
                 the rain of ending.

a wind of old nails
             broken stones
the sky a guilt of rain
all these stunted trees
             grasp over wet moss
seagulls are unborn children
that cry over the tundra
this is the end of a measured world
this is the e nd ofa mea sured wor ld

nearing time

a ring of stars told me the future is
the sea that you try to grasp with
your broken hands and the past will
not be changed it is stained with rust
and flotsam as your inside ebbs like
the mossed ruin in the dunes as salted
grass fails to grow as the wind shakes
the waves you are alone and alone