time pressed on my heart like
the whiteness of your tile

;

she was in your arms
my

features
fade

without

sentinel, pines
and pain winding in the dark
i cuddle with the emptiness
and fold with oblivion—
and knowing:
if you had to fade,
the nighttime remains
and knowing:
you were just a relegation of
loveless noise.

shaking through the warm underground,
rising to the impassive dusk:
i pointed out the stars but
we were blinded by the light—

you still stared.

lights flare and colour
the compressions of mislaid understanding

they turn like
spring without flowers
and spin like
winter without snow

they vacate like faded
concrete and burn like
wasted, pressing aisles

they sway like promises
of heartbreak, and crumple
like sharp, reflected whispers

they move like
formless shadows and
imagine like closeness

to you

—i bend:
throbbing
dully

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning's white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We'll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.

green knotgrass (rising
like a

moon of you)

reflects the ebony
shades of

tranquillity

and the sky dropped in pellets of
sea.

“an embodiment of the oneness of life”, you supposed,
but the moon was cold and the sun had lost itself below
the horizon

“the oneness of life”, you whispered,
melting into the calm.