name

It is there without so much as 

an inkling of thinking,

before all the dreams are gone,

before the work of waking has begun,

your name like breathing in

some wondrous lilting bloom

thick with heady pheromones or

that hook of a song repeated like

a mantra, the phrase clinging 

to the muddle of being, a righteous 

ringing out. Your name, then

the litany of rebukes and refusals,

swallowing fresh sorrows spitting 

those small soft syllables, nevermore 

nevermore, the grasped truth that

the heart doesn’t heal and 

the hold won’t relent. So I speak

your name aloud to starless night

and loveless room, writing down

these artless unread lines,

hope held as if by the grave.