poppies
sowed themselves
among the dahlias

each grim petal
pinned to the shrunken
air with collected precision

a salience of limbs gropes
for an oblique mouth
to unearth the sour
breath of ages

a damning stroke shatters teeth
jerks the lips
into a vast corrosive howl



***
italicized is from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse

two candles
burned alone
upon two desks

and carefully they spent
each other's breath

and silently
they circled round
the earth a haze
to fool
the fools
to blind
the blind

to shield them
from the falling night

you drown alone
but i dive in

to sing a spell to march
through waves
to call and call

until you stand before me
with an oar

two candles
burned alone
upon two desks
and carefully
they spent
each other's breath

and one was tall
and one was small

and neither knew
which way to stretch
its arms

talking to you is like
   making love
in a deep well
   scooping fistfulls of oxygen with every word

   spinning into the soft earth
   to carve a path of fire