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.
