We fall hunting for laurels,
shredding

       our purple bruises
       into rose hips.

Our silversmith rings lose their fingers,
cracked irreparable.

       Our lives of lavish luxury
       lives as lapis lazuli.

The banks of the Ipswich
call out:

       silhouettes behind birch bark.
       Remember

how we used to swim
her waters;

       tread her auric ebb?
       We aim at deer, at ripening

persimmons. They chew
the fruit pretty.

       We aim at killdeer.
       Kiss a wasp.

We were dead fireworks
under Laniakea eyes.

       As midnight, we are
       films noir:

we imagine *******
Lauren Bacall from behind,

       speaking and kissing in tongues,
       her mouth tasting

of unfiltered smoke,
breathing the snow

       melting
       down her rose hips.

We stuff the stuff of nightmares
into a cardboard box.

       We howl at solar winds and polar vortexes.
       We are a vesica; both/and.

We fall hunting for laurels,
adolescent pulsars with persimmon eyes.