the observer

watching the end of one thing
or possibly all, in a room decorated
with corridors.

the scent of you inside this wall
weakens my fingers, kidnaps
my call.

your message is swept
like debris, like debt
and I lose memory,
lose regret
in a moment of possible death.

when you died

I had excess words
to fling, far and thin,
sinewy kites
that strained against string

and the curses rang out
fish that fly, hearts that swim

doors that close
on the sly leaving
your memory to stall
under a camouflaged sky.

a foreign religion

flutterby, grey moth
that silkens this still gate.
the clamour outdoors
is fanatic
in this darkened place.

aftermath beckons
with lips as twisted
as a splintered
torture bench.

inside-out quotation marks

if she had not been stitched
inside out, she might be pretty.
As is, her condition
alarms all passersby and even
those who choose to pause and watch.

"It's my heart!" she exclaims, "It was created
like this." such radical deformity,
such  punctuated bliss.

intermezzo, mon amour

the theatre where
you mulled opaque white berries

has long since disappeared.

I ghost-walk through December's
playful chill.

A pause can smudge and blink
or bury deep inside a snowy throat.
Animal tracks decorate
sidewalks endlessly parallel

to closed crime scene boutiques.

December Swan

all that glistens
is not silver.
strung soft lights
mimic tinsel.

I blink hard
and whistle, glimpsing
a ghost train, catching winter.