seeds) buried
in the mordant sunshine;
they) told you the sun
would hold you—setting the
soil and the moon.
they) told you the sun
would bury you—cutting the
glassy afternoon.

i saw your note: “the
summation of your tears
infinitely converges”—
then breathlessness as you
paused

—and upon
the water, a heron stirred,
pensive;
the reeds bowed to the northern sky—

“converging, converging”: the mad,
scrawled words, the scribbled midnight
lament; you hid your heart in a pocketbook, pages
folded and layered.

did you feel the reeds yield to
that northern horizon? did you feel that pensive,
infinite heron? she stirred, scattering your
words in the early summer breeze.

headway upon
the waters—scratching
like mice, their ears, furred
and wrapped into the overcoat

they dropped: your river was like a
cage.

ii.

the nighttime
nods and mourns to
the sounds of your breathing—
like a beacon of the sea, she feels
the pull of the moon, feels the
rising shadows of disunion

that mass of air, thicker
than the crust of the earth and
the layers of the ether;
you couldn’t remember how to smile or
laugh or cry—

you just sighed
at her.

i.

lights drifted
over you

and i—

darkened
your silhouette

       shadow
danced on the walls
pressed against the
slumber,gently rocking

my—

over you.

your indignant snow seemed
so wasteful,
so condemned:
i remembered
your halo calming me as
the stage lights trembled;
i remembered your unabashed
stillness, the defenceless apathy of
corpses—

you lay wan,
abject, an object of
blank disposability,
howling in the roundness
of dust.

/your                  love is a
flimsy wick/
I,—         a /ready gust....