displaced to the sterile mercy of this place.
Diaphony withdrawn as probably as
destiny, recalling her palm upturned
to feel the grains that slip into
our sleepless eyes
where she dreamed our futures.
This thought threads arachnodactylous wisps
spreading their many jointed legs to fill
the dancing of a body well used.

I could have come sooner.
I could have divested the clatter,
the shine of baubles and nebulous distractions.
I could easily have offered my soul.

All you wanted: our eyes locked into a perpetual bliss.
All you wanted was a deep and endless pool
the darkness so complete
so comfortable, you said, so final.

You couldn't have fallen the coloured glass like
rain on the asphalt, and somewhere a sandman
dusted the reverie of the highway in downbeats
across the windshield an etude in betrayal.

The night before I tried to call you into the shower,
to call you with my body into the sacred space
that might have saved you for a moment
that might have closed the distance

strung too tightly, the tendons a terse
and gut kept silence of reserve,
between your bruised eyes and shutterred hands.