Wind hot as sunlight on your cracked lips:
its song lives inside you
you move as it moves
this red dust too restless;
it will not abide forever
ground beneath our feet
you are still here
the girl with eyes like a crow, intelligence glinting
her head cocks to the side
that mouth was made to slice flesh from bone
you have seen her face in mine
she devours your words—
you are still here
so many years carrying poems of the dead
you wake with nothing left on your lips but that which will never die
we live in the space between one song and another
and the echoes we carry will consume this husk utterly
rise early
I find you shivering, etched against pale light
you search the horizon, the flights of birds; the nightmare falls forgotten
you are still here
these stolen moments, forgetting duty
we live within such frailty
this cup runneth over
smoke rises, a farmer burning leaves
behold yourself in its face
even stones must perish
your hand in mine
you are still here
in your glance
a thousand graceless poems
