In the cinder dark folds of dusk
the ash and silver tallow of the candle spills.
Peering through a window, the fluttering curtain is drawn
and all that was once seen and past,
now falls, soft husks against the glass of our remembering.
The plumet of a bird
lost in the carbon forest,
the stem of a flower resting,
as though we are kneeling in a dream that lets us sleep.
The needle thin trace of the liminal,
Its white pulse
as delicate as a wrist,
a tower of threads,
a sleeve of lace.
Peering through a window, the curtain is drawn.
In the shelter of the cinder dark the horizon is emptying,
yet vessels float in the ether of our imaginings.
The night has poured in, rose and cobalt.
We are alone but not afraid,
for a boat waits
still beneath the heavy wing of the changeling skies,
and the book it blazes with the rising of a bird.
