how did you ever come to this—
is never the question,
she clinks her glass on the russet tablework and crinkles her nose
onto some cold draft.

some answers i keep to myself:

it is not a very honorable question.
a noble man might ask,
where shall this bring you?
now that you are... this state of being?

the answer i said:
after a while, i have been having
dreams of white parasols
cerements being whacked
into aching scabs on the skin
of an old tendril - that laburnum
where a pebble of raindrop
slides freely!
and i uttered shyly of my place,
i once fell in that speed
and came to no crash.
and now here are words - just words,
pure loneliness, or say, a preordained vacuity waiting to be filled— no,
wait, it isn't! a feral with diurnal eyes
never asleep, always awake!
no, still not very apt.

i have fallen like this, and it was
also i, waiting for myself
at the end of each
line, shattering at word's break.