The soap soft machine of your hand,

willow lithe and needle strong

would collapse me. The bridges

are already burning and ready to

confess every suicide was pushed.

It is supposedly voluntary, you accept

the light when you walk into a room.

A heave of breast catches a stream

in the flood of fluorescent light,

lustrous through the dark dance

of your hair. I wade in hoping

there is land to be lead to.

Leaves burn, drop into ash, and scatter.

The music of death spiraling, sometimes

a buzz saw grinding far away; sometimes

the pregnant pause of a barometric shift.

But it is always about the creases

worn through and how we tear ourselves

on the failed edges of the past. I will

hold a match outside of this season until

you need a flame to dance around burning

like a wick licking a paraffin heart

.