cold cold sliver of light
your harvests have ruined us with delight
then brought us to this gold drought
now again the season of lights
strives to quench the inky chills
sharpened by memories of slate and moss
dusted by lace and delicate frost
whole thimblefulls of color
sketch the brine
quickly in the night sky
pieces of our white bodies appear
glittering from an unspoken past
the sun's gyre deepening from cosmos to bone,
as the cycles leap through hair
and are written into our hands
the dark branches
mapped by leaves matter
so does the elfin sea
we take these homeopathic doses
of cold silver
to enter the flame
ribbons bite the black and talk back
the crystal world reverses
the hum of summer amazing the dark queen in her red throne
hideous wrecks march along the bricks
dragon-haired madchens fade into dusk
keep the cold out or let it in
either way it spins
all real all illusion all real
entering now the mannequin stillness of
death's statuary we thought we knew too well
in the wild dark blue
an orange hallucination blossoms
and we run as water
sluicing into patterns
within the vast geometries
that pin us like Orion
yet open us
and let us go
