Morning is a burnt thing
that wrings the dark from my dress,
a lilting blue on the lawn,
in that twilight, so heavy
with lures and the tiniest snails
leave ochre splinters in my palms,
a scar, where you wrote in my book,
the blood part of ruined pages, bone white
and virulent, you raise the urge to render
my wrists more fragile,
more fragile than this,
a restlessness as black as a raven
drifts through bits of paper, stray wings
come to worship the hour, vanishing
between nine and ten, Winter
is a tenderness as transparent as silk,
as fragile as poppies,
its ruthless baptism upon my body
filling with snow, my skin shimmers
like dusk, like wings
all night you held me,
steadied my heart in the heavy wind,
even when the wildflowers had sown
themselves into the shape of a grave,
the garden overgrown, my body
from a bone, and my soul
out of nothing, opening,
opening for yours,
I am sure, god has failed me,
and longing is just the heart
changing colors, all its chambers, churning
the slowly spoiling hour, all night
I ribbon and tendril,
as you make a cage of your fingers to keep out the light,
shut the latches of this cell,
shut your eyes, my lover,
for I am frayed, my belly blood dark
and grey, where it is all wearing at the ends,
a little gin poured upon the open sore
of this ache, as I am caged in glass,
shackled at my wrists, like pink clusters of wisteria (oh, pink)
upon the secret places of our skin,
fingertips press against me like a bell,
beneath the swell of *******,
I keep the debris,
my poems to you are small,
quartered and hidden beneath the floorboards
of this room, the bed, the glass,
the pink (oh pink) wisteria in bloom,
morning, is a burnt thing,
spoiled like a jail of brick and mortar,
where I live on licorice,
and on the palest underside of the wrists,
the half beat,
I dont think, I have ever loved so gently,
in silence, unexpected,
midnight spooled in a clavicle,
for my skeleton is a fossil
you will find every night
in your flesh,
and my faith lies
in that single thing left
to us, a smoldering filigree of sorrow,
shaped like a moth,
and morning is our burning....
