i watched you slip by as if a river i looked into
had taken hold of my reflection
and run off with it.
the nitingale bled her note above me
and below were those pomegranates
staining the water.
i was a white thing, hurt's own.
stretched out across the sky like nuit,
light pricked from me.
the real secret of it was
that all my loves became one.
force,
and the vine-covered wall with
the mounded rosemary above it,
wreathed in fog, lit by
the orange street lamp.
force,
and the smoke of the cigarette,
its burn stubbing at my finger-ends,
over-sharp in the throat.
force, and you too
vanesa.
your dark hair i wished
to twine about my wrists--i must have wished
to feel your hair against my throat.
but my arms were lined
only with dry dull wine color
and the zinc-whiteness
of the scar.
everything
conflated
to the point
of nothing
like white teeth
running through a fruit
until nothing is left
no, not even the seed.
even you--
i imagined even you
devoured
by that seared dead whiteness.
which is why i never wanted.
which is why i only loved.