once upon a murky gleaming, while I sat in peaceful dreaming,
haunted by the golden streaming of a sun I knew before;
while i lingered, senses slipping, sudden came a memory, dripping;
dripping soft as footsteps; tipping o’er a childhood door.
“’tis a dream,” i whispered faintly, “just a dream, and nothing more,
    just the dawn, and nothing more.”

ah, i well recall the hour, twin in soul and form and flower,
two in gait, in skirt and collar, bound for days that soared and tore.
hand in hand we walked unknowing, where the amber sky was glowing,
past the railing, wind still blowing, through a world we’d yet explore,
past the gleam and fading laughter down a bridge of evermore...
    gone, it seems, forevermore.

and the warm and wistful trailing of her shadow, faint and failing,
fell across my thoughts like ashes from a hearth now cold and sore.
strangely stilled was all her love, changed her tone to aching woe,
gone the warmth, replaced by woe, cold and clean behind closed doors.
“speak,” i begged, “the one I cherished, has she vanished to some shore?”...
   but the silence answered, “nevermore.”

then I climbed a roof, forsaken, sunset gold and soul mistaken,
there to gaze on roofs and fences of a life i held before.
she, the girl with pigtail braiding, now in poise and poise parading,
spoke in tongues of grown detaching, eyes that sought my own no more.
“has the night devoured her laughter, locked it past some inner door?”
      still the air replied, “no more.”

o, how softly sang the twilight! once we shared this selfsame skylight,
now i watch alone, in silence, as the orange embers pour.
roof and ridge in shadow yawn, and all the girl i knew was gone,
changed to stranger sharp and drawn, who held my hand no more.
and the sky, once wide and wondrous, seemed to whisper from its core:
    “you shall find her; nevermore.”

was it time that drew the curtain, or some sorrow, slow but certain?
did she walk ahead in yearning for a self she fancied more?
did i falter? was i clinging? while her soul began its winging,
winging toward a world where union withered into folklore?
still I searched the golden fading, still I reached, forever sore,
      she is not the girl before.

so i sit, alone, in grieving, sun and shadow interweaving,
all the bridges burnt and silent that we crossed in days of yore.
and within that glow descending, I saw not her form, unbending,
but the ghost of all pretending we had ever been before.
now my soul, beneath that sunset, whispers softly evermore:
      “she is gone, and nothing more.”

i like my eyes when they are with your
mouth, chewing. it is so quite
everyday a thing and yet
(i swear
god forgets himself
watching you eat toast)

you bite and there is
crumbs and your lip
licks the corner of itself and i
am
absolutely unmade.

i like your fingers
(left hand holding
nothing at all)
i like the way they twitch between bites
like maybe you're about to gesture or pray
or remember a thing
you'll never say.

i like your noise
soft-throat clear
the way silence curls around your chewing
like it wants to taste too.

and (suddenly) i am
all nerves and
nerves more.

you drink from the chipped mug
the one we don’t throw out
and i am the coffee and the
handle and
whatever it is that
makes mornings want to be touched.

and possibly i like the thrill
of how nothing happens,

and yet you look up
and i am completely kissed.

i woke inside the trench.
my teeth were not my own.
my hand was gone, or chewed
in word i’d never known.

the war was soft and wet.
the skull had turned to chalk.
birds dropped like folded notes.
the siege forgot to talk.

she rode like wrath grown tall.
her helm was grief made gold.
no mercy in her path,
just silence, woe and cold.

the saints had kissed her lips.
their bones were in her hair.
the banner trailed behind,
stitched from a baby’s prayer.

she said:
stand. (i was.)
bleed. (i am.)
forget. (i have.)

they named her rust and sin.
they called her winterborn.
i called her sir. she knelt.
she cracked the siegehorns’ horn.

she fed the dying steeds.
she named them one by one.
she burnt all of their spines
beneath a rotting sun.

we drank the ink from flags.
we ate the borderlines.
we fed the crowns to crows
we wept in battle lines.

dull gape, like beryl stars,
spun like a compass dead.
she searched for Gods on fire,
who left the church in red.

our vows were carved in filth.
she wore a veil of teeth.
i wore the wound she gave
and nothing else beneath.