In fairness, the end could not have been easier.
A stillborn breath gutted out,
old lump of a deathly echo.
I am entombed here,
on this island fortified with a thousand winters.
Effortless to migrate and molt.
To voyage out alone and build hateful nest
of iron-ice and blackened blood-frost.
Easy to tie the corded wastrels
into empty fire pits and dream there,
like the corpses of gods
left scattered on the roadside.
Such cavities do not touch me,
nor do I haze about with vagaries concerning such things.

It’s your scars that cut into me now,
and my last prayer hangs about you
like a shroud of fog.
Let all else wheel by,
but you stay.
You stay,
and close those galaxy-eyes against me.
What blood is left in me
runs for you, my love,
and when all else is chalk-ice and tempest winds,
still my skin impersonates me.
Still you run through my memory cave
in the shape of an ox,
dressed in charcoal.
How I hate this charade.

What is easy about it?
Even the name of the smallest grain of sand
is a story too long to tell,
too long to remember.
Each end of it fades out and goes on,
maybe looping itself
and holding out in defiance
of the unidirectional flow of time.
I will go backwards next time and get simpler,
sloughing off forgotten icebergs
like burrs caught in my feathers.
Like a salmon returning to spawn,
growing young and warm again,
uncorrupted.
And one day,
sweetly anonymous in your eyes:
unknown, unnamed, and free.