while the holocene climaxes
through empty, breezing streets (seeing
your leaves and flowers wither and curl on the two-edged
backlane, loose gravel and overhanging apartments looming
like sharp needlepoints of darker grey)
drops, just streams, coalesce on dark green leaves,
dirt scatters on the phosphorescent, forgotten film—imperceptibly,
rain blurs your lonely photographs (i hold

them in boxes and under books, and
gaze at scrawls where your hand once touched, and
ponder at surfaces where your mind once wandered, and
shadow them on my heart, and
shatter them on my memories).

Fixed upon a
stare
and I dare untie the look.

needlepoints and button hooks
and afternoon spent with Aunt Maud.

She covered up piano legs
and
wrote letters to the press
but,
as mad a box of monkeys
nevertheless.

Down the coach and horses in the 'snug'
with a bottle of stout
easy to get her in there
next to impossible getting her out

and then dear Lord you took Aunt Maud
a mistake you'll come to rue and
when she bends your ear for half a year
you'll not know what to do.

in outer space, with no sun in sight,
i open my eyes. and yet more black
surrounds this craft alone, as if its
defiant lids were never unshut.

a glimpse: far-off needlepoints of light,
beyond the yawning gulf of pitch-black,
are born-dying drifts in sightless pits,
digesting in a bottomless gut.

winter in its final breath
crackling hoarfrost perceived no more
dares spring rain to yield creation
like needlepoints on the window
running cold