A star of blood you fell
from the point of the hypodermic
singing of fabulous beasts &
spitting out the *** of vowels
Your poems explode in the mouth
like torrents of ***** on a night
     full of zebras & bootheels
Your ghost still cruses the river-
fronts of midnight assignations
in a world of dead sailors carrying
         armfuls of flowers in search of
                       your unmarked grave
Your body no sanctuary for bees,
Death was your lover in a rain of
      broken obelisks & rotting orchids
In the tangled rose of a single heartbeat
I offer you the shadow of a double
profile,
     two heads held together at the bridge
         of the nose by a nail of *****
                                           smoke
     in the long night's dreaming
     & memory of water poured between
                                              glasses
In my mailbox I find a letter from
     a dead man & know that for every
                shadow given
                one is taken away
Yet subtraction is only a special form of
addition and implies a world of hidden
intentions below a horizon of lips
thin as your fingernail sprouting
mysteries in the earth …
The ace of spades dealt from the bottom
      of the deck severs the hand which
      retrieves it & the eyes of Beauty
      sewn together peer over a black lace fan
      in the ****** sunlight of a Spanish
           morning without horses
             The Belt of Orion is loosened
before you as you remove the silver
fingerstalls from your mummy hands &
kneel to plunder the nightsky in a shower of
                  bitter diamonds.
(Somewhere under a blanket someone weeps
               for a lover.)
Peace to your soul
& to your empty shoes
in the dark closets of
kings with no feet!!!