You do not know how to paint
On wall or on heart, my mumbles
Everyday you stray, cold in my hold
You leave the window open for snow
It passes, through us, shuffling
Leaves footprints on our body
Do you think I am dead and deaf?
I hear you singing softly to it
I feel the simple following wisps
That flake away and land on lip
On lip and railing of eye awake

Sun settles, a fading bleak jewel
Atop the smooth hued neck of sky
There is no remedy for lost dream
I chase reckless, clawing inside
Reaching like a tree into time
Of soft rose night and tears like wax
Like flame, like birds, like burning—
Sweet God stumbles, drunk and
A darling, pliant as clay: through hours
I fashion vessels, filled to the brim
With pickles of quiet. God
Is in the wordless wells of rue. You

Are lost, lost, to blindness and
Abandon, out about in search of dyes
So strong the ramparts of black
That bar, from me the remnants
Of our blunt tryst. Come - come
Back to body, now that it lives
Come, lost pilgrim, my plummet blue
Stifle the sun. Paint it all wrong.