While she called

From the hulled exhibition,

Plucking the skin in whispers

Of evanescent promise—

I waited for water

To roll us over the rocks

Into sleep.

Sweetness wasn’t alone

When it flew out your window,

For some dusty sorrow hung soon after.

It clung to the walls of this room

Where I could

Never once rest.

I held on until I couldn’t.

I held these folders for which

Mercy has distant faith—

Which he ropes along to an aisle of three.

His shoulders weaken without

The weight of you and I.

He trudges with love and

Loves whatever must vanish.

There’s no taste more private

Than waking cold from

No stony sleep, no absence.

Waking to the shiver of common day,

To the chagrined push

And pull in unlit hallways.

There is something to say of staying awake

When the arms between us aren’t ours—

Syndicates and stakeholders

Changing from nothing to one,

To nothing again.

If by now I called you lover

I would sink into forgotten snow,

I would hide the words that seemed

To be, but find them gone

Before you could turn to me.