New

Clenched fists like a heart’s final constriction,
pried open to crumpled Autumn spiraling
in five hundred criss-cross paths.

Eyes open but empty of language:
crust of evaporated words at the corners
of a page.

The darkness that comes before comes after.
Mysterious how you were several hand-widths
between steps.

Steady line like a promise. A life, the world,
gearing down in tapered threnody,
a carriage’s final rise and thump.

Curtain call to an adolescent month of Sundays.
Fresh binding split like an axe to an alphabet.
Penultimate sojourn sloughed in morning glory.
Steady line like a promise. A life, the world,
humming with electricity from finger
to blessed finger.