listing, lilting reveries
for ghosts of the chrysanthemums,
you listen, tucked between my knees,
for crying out as autumn comes,
then breathe the bottled air
while lying silent in the pasture
as the sun that rises slow,
renounced as Master,
dries the aster.
steady, subtle change renames
the song we'd often sung
which, ravaged, new and agèd,
saps the honey from my lungs.
to lie in leaves and rapture
turns my bones Parisian plaster:
crack my ribs and what is there
is yours to capture.