you’d emptied just for me.
I love the vein
in your left hand that paints the only world
                                    I love. You blink

and each mirage to ever blur
                        this earth reverses. I run
my mouth, look down,
                        am done. I don’t know how
to be changed by goodness.
                        Shadows on the street waltz
to a voice they cherish most
                        of all and so I steal a shade
in which to stand and watch
                                                              and weep.

It’s you alone I trust to turn
                                          the air into a colour.
It’s you alone I trust to dole
                                        the apple of my pain.

(Before even your mouth I’ll kiss
                  the maker of the world I love.
                  That rivulet.
                  A thief in blue.
                  Before even your mouth.)

Was it you who figured the artist
                  as a kind of moody scientist, desk
a clean laboratory, gloved fingers
                  dissecting crisis like an animal?
All night I lie awake to ponder
                  this gorgeous potential
for gore between us.
                  I’ll wear the bone
of the last creature to wander the brink
of the woods of your life.