When leaf drips off the plants like dew
I know I have failed
Fog on poor gold settled thick
And knuckly branches grasp at my trousers
As they whisper by

Like a nightmare full of the dead

Sorry, I say
With that same wet-paper voice of mine
My footprints forgotten
On dust-dressed tiles
I cannot water you, dear Pothos
I need not
You have no limbs left to feed and
I know I have failed

Failed.

(And so mine a being
In an echoing of souls)

Failed?
Such pretty your tales
And freeing miseries

Sinking frantic
In a devour of spring
These the tentacles of my beautiful Aloe
These the stout roses
My,
My mirthful Jasmines
And grasses–– alive!

Failed?

Green at last!

You bathe in blues and
Craft tragedies from mud
Ruin your love
And despair a bed-slave pretty

Could I weep–– interrupt or scream
But I am wood and they are not

Failed?
Or would you rather?
For fall for you is an effortless flight
And funeral the only peace
Then mourn!

Could I shut the window and
Bar it against the raging city
But breaks— it breaks breaks breaks!

Mourn and mourn!
Till the daylight goes to sleep
And mourn with your wretched stars
For the night

You mock!
Oh, be voiceless, sessile
Thorns again!

And when in the morning
The moon is dead
And thinner our stems
We will say
With that same parched clinging of ours:
We are not dust yet
Are you?

––