Last night at 11 I walked
around the corner of the house
to where no porch light shines
and the night greedily swallows
the smoke I do not absorb.
There is a metaphor about
what was sacred to me.
You were every cup overflowing.

I want to confess my sins. I want
to put the knife in your hands,
I want to push it into the
permanence of a scar.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, I will not
stand in front of a Rothko.
I will stand under the tension
of a desert willow bloom in
late October. It is paralyzed
in its insistence after the bees
have already left. There is no
backhanded kindness.
Membranes vibrate against
the edges of a dimming season.

The past makes me a ghost.




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