i think sounds echo
off your lips in the dark;
they drop like needles off
my back.

impermanence was
traced
in flowers;

in clouds below
the highway

the hills thawed;
the night cried on.

you slept in the whiteness
of blank pages,
like snow—
footsteps along the edges.

your breath rose and circled me,
held me, like your wisps of
silken hair—quiet, never finding
a home.

you carried
space and time
in little dots,
like jackals, you thought,
like autumn starlight,
dotting the sky with their
cold, curdled howls.

two centres of
you:

they pulled me like
cats. they pulled me like
carriages.

the roads were
muddy: worn and
muddy.

the sky was grey;
the world was ready to
rain.

pointedly blurring in colours
and tones, you captured your
strokes in brittle clay fragments

we were consanguineal—
we were blood and oil—the

whirl of
your canvas sounded like a thousand
raindrops.

Some days you can only paint in blacks,
midnight, sage, mulberry sometimes—
the shades of rotten meat. An artist
can only make of what is given.

Some days smearing violent
Crimson, scarlet, florid visions
is not enough. A painting is a mind
captured by a moment. But moments pass.

One day riotous chartreuse,
vermillion, the full spectrum waltzing
across your iris will not fatigue you. You
will brush dawn across your skin.