while the holocene climaxes
through empty, breezing streets (seeing
your leaves and flowers wither and curl on the two-edged
backlane, loose gravel and overhanging apartments looming
like sharp needlepoints of darker grey)
drops, just streams, coalesce on dark green leaves,
dirt scatters on the phosphorescent, forgotten film—imperceptibly,
rain blurs your lonely photographs (i hold

them in boxes and under books, and
gaze at scrawls where your hand once touched, and
ponder at surfaces where your mind once wandered, and
shadow them on my heart, and
shatter them on my memories).