3:30 on the train—
it seems so dark these days:

these days
when grass withers
on my footsteps, when thoughts
of you—you, the flame of my lighthouse,
the sail of my ocean—drift and
hang, warily, in the murky air.

3:30 on the train—
another day, rustling through the
dark, without you.

i bare my shoulders to the wind's chill.
i sit next to you on the car ride home.
i watch as shadows gather on your skin.
i pine for twilight after the sun sets—

and still hear you in the pine air
and still feel you in my pining breath
and still hold you in each pined sigh.

whiter upon the flowing, her sounds
rested in morning coffee and echoed
in wildflower honey. i remembered her in
halcyon hues: she
folded down; i crossed and uncrossed;
she smiled at my clumsy ramblings and
i watched the lingering, icy
windshield.

you ran with me through the terminal, fleeing
the tranquility of geographical association.

it was always the same: a surrender to the overcast;

we watched the sky fill with paper airplanes.

amass, the flesh.

we're just spinning brains
without a central axis.

and i thought that you would
steady me, i thought

you would expect more.

“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.

It is unlatched
so two shades of blue shine
      unseen, darkening.
There is no pale impression from
the ceiling light, just indigo,
      just midnight,
ink on a page unread.
You can’t make out the dust
      spiraling
anymore. You can’t remember
the last notes played here,
      anymore.

for displacement of
covers matches the rising, the
floating of your soul — the green
fades to thinner pines and
wilted evergreens, while the snow
piles and clusters in cones:
up to grey, then
small, then
white.

stellar masses collide
beyond you; they silhouette
your ethos, slip loose your
hair—
they pattern your fingertips
and colour your
sigh

their flame:
a colossus
in your eyes.

auks felt like brushes
of yellow as midnight
traversed the sky; clouds
rolled as light
reflections of wisdom and i smelled
their smooth, ebbing trails of
quiet passing.

you drive as an
ageless curse;
sparrow feather
to your chest,
you wait
to take flight.

crushed underfoot:
ever buried our

leaves (once red

with dawn

hands and bones
disjoint and adjoin these
prefixes, for the hills of your
monoliths align with the lighting of the
north; and over and circular you
descend and ascend, feeling the blue of the water
and the paleness of the sky—and in
night, hanging softly, shrouding, impenetrable
valleys, immutable in their perception of your
calm, longing for the adoration of
feeling.

i.

lights drifted
over you

and i—

darkened
your silhouette

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

my—

over you.

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.

impermanence was
traced
in flowers;

in clouds below
the highway

the hills thawed;
the night cried on.

paper airplanes
folded into
shimmering glances of
you, your eyes buoyant,
rusty with the dust.
you, your eyes fireflies
—looming, granite fireflies—
folded into
floodlights

glaring, blinding,
blue.

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.

—dreamed and
still (it leavened and dimmed, to sea:
anymore?  —

—wrapped and
lamenting (it folded and hushed, to be:
evermore? —

—warmed and
quailing (it reddened and shallowed, and she:
nevermore? —

reflective in
reflections: sad,
you said, greens and blues,
sad, you wondered,
like a ribbon

i felt you too—
pale greens,
fading blues)

spinning, you were
the same heart beating—

but dissonant: your eyes wandered
over

when you

smiled:
the dark fell away in waves,
your heart still hid away.

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.

heavy air, close thunderclouds
closing, now

closer than breath
(breathe, thunderclouds,

breathe)

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

if i closed
you—

if the air fell
backwards, darkly—

if yours
brooked with golden
sunrise

softened (i love

when you
    dance.

orchestral
rows, fading
one by one
into higher and higher
blankness. it's an impossibility
that you'll look up there and meet
my eye. we're not starlight, after
all; you don't look at us with wonder.

we sailed on cream
and aster—

where bluejays
toss
air into air;

where frogs
curdle
mud into milk;

where blackberry
roots
skyline into horizon—

(we sailed)

I want your crimson—
envelop,
cling,
embody—

Like fractals to rub my hands
       over.

Kindling aplenty
as the snows set in.

what spaces do
you leave between the
lines? what places do
you hide, beside mine?

ivory lines lead parallel
from dawn to dawn: from
pictures of you that adorn
agelessness.

prayers to gold-
tipped sunsets won't
bring that dawn
again.

your screaming aura,

your ethos:

you're woven into
bedstands and nightstands;

looming sideways,
your head disappears into

a maze of tangled lines.

doves
decay in gutters;
their ghosts dart
across your greedy
eyes.

how do you
fade? doves
sink into a red sun

pale,
aberrant in a sky of
memory.

found her but couldn't hold
what wanted you to find, to love
what you are
i felt you when you were closing

when you were closer

driving over these
blue lines is like bridges
without arched triangles—

your arched and aching triangles.

Etched
feather on water's shoulder

her eyes beneath something
cloudy.

On roll these
temperate symbols of
a dreamy landscape.

ambience echoes in caverns and
caves: i press my ear against
the wall and wait for your
sigh.

swallows fly in
fractured patterns: i stared
at the canopy

i bellowed your name
and sobbed; my dog
licked my face

faraway: i know your voice
rumbles with music.

—loneliness; and watching the graphite
scratch and scatter into
moonlight, you spread through
the inky sea and swim up
through the angled crests
of understanding: while you
remember last night's stars,
i stand and stare at the
colours of our ending.

not feeling the gravity
around your darkness,
not seeing the depth and shape
—stretched, elongated—
the asymmetry

of axes, maligned, blue on
red: blood on metal,
tooth by tooth:

we don't fly anymore
on these pale, manila wings.

you're scrawled in the faint wood,
aren't you? i don't smell
your pine and heather,

an evergreen finality—
not evergreen, anymore.

half-brightened in starlight's silver stream,
pulsing like the gentle whisper of your dream;
pulled from the cradle of spring's bright
and tucked into winter's evernight.

your dress is black (the
smell of summer grass)

and everything holds
everything
    else.

a million lines make a window:
each suspended,
each digressing in the paleness
of space.

this distance from
you (a blotch of dark ink,
bits of pressed lead)
can never hurt more
than your expectation.

i don't
know you anymore; i

i am

pink sky,
     red-tipped flames
i cut the forest in
you.

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.

her everything
curled into the evening—
the flame ebbed
and darkened.

Crystalline cold upon asphalt:

Fated.

It melts for me,
I am colder by you,

We do not collide.

and the fog remains best understood unspoken;
concealed and silently together, we stare and
silence—only the quiet of your eyes mirrors the
peace of the morning, the greens of the unmeasured,
the dark intimations of understanding.