I scarred the paintchips on a doorframe,
making my way through,
with wicker baskets of fresh cut
                         wine-white flame;
jutting, into that summer,
ready to empty my pockets
      of the careful pressure
  I'd built up behind ribs,
for a heart:
once in hand,
  beating and dreaming, alive,
like that wind I'd cherished,
   for its consistent transparency.

so, you,
  under the ocean of sheets, engulfed and over it,
and, I, well,
   I was wrong.
   I lost the match, to bled-green stares out of river stone eyes.

I was on your porch, it took seconds,
   a mere shadow, incarnate momentarily,
as
     the world derobed, curtain pulled back,
and bitter realization
           fell, like a single leaf, or a storm.

Left,
to stand by, and watch the feathers drop,
as that
   flock of birds,
    torn wider than the midland prairies,
                                 made patterned migration,
leaving my hands, cupped
and empty, same
  as I had started out,
   when I'd coursed the same mistake of
     letting the rain in,
      when I'd already drowned,
        time after time
          after time,
           before.