clockwork

There is a cast to the darkness that can only imitate your absence. A warmth of a wound, the boundless burn of a lack of flesh. In these shadows I hear music, that soft retort of blood and breath. That strange shifting of weight just out of reach, that sumptuous arrangement of tenses, past and present, insoluble on the tongue. The shifting of pipes a kind of local thunder so constant in the night. The crackling of bones sounding in my ears.

Your skin finds a kind poverty in this light, as if you carried lit candles flickering in your depths. As if there was a confession the world could only offer you. As if you were the bearer of all lost prayers. All the poetry of forlorn hope there in your shift and shimmer. All the shades drawn and shadows left for imagining.

Outside dogs bark and sirens sound. The television drones on and on. Hours painted in dust and vermin, the sounds of glass and ice. Tomorrow crosses some unknown border, littered with secrets, buoyed by the chiming. These fingers drift through keys and minutes. All these words left trailing in your wake.