quietus

my heart like

a split end.

trim it off

with the fat of memory.

throw it away

and watch the arc it makes in air

as if of your hair.

it wasn't you,

lover, that crawled out

into day,

white skin pimpled with shock

beneath a blue sky.

as if i stripped you even of skin

and wore you,

huddled

within.

in the sanity of moonlight,

moonlight dripping memory,

i draw a zinc-white thumb

across a lip

and wait for night

to dry.

quietus

i was a magician, a master-weaver.
snakelike, the rhythm to you and i
that i wove again and again.

no escape from the outcome,
as any gambler knows,
but for one shaking minute,
shaking like the leaf of a deadened aspen,
the sequence itself can change,

for one cheated ray of light
the sequence itself can change

like jenga.

patient in pale state
my hide in tatters
(it does not matter)
i wait   for my breath
to   rebound
what i never
had, what
i   always   had never had.