Love leaves me whole,
a pockmarked moon.
Pared wounds knitted together
by chewing ants, each
champing tiny jaws over my flesh.
I taste of red dwarfs, half-dazed.
I am only this visible from a height.
An impact crater. Shallow basin
where the scuttling, fearty mammals
will rise again.
Remember not to be
a martyr, no one cares;
when the pyre burns out,
people traipse through the ashes.
In my native tongue, the word burn means
a lowly river, and so I understand
the world in backwards motion,
a mirror cursed with opposites.
I’ll take you out, tablecloth
crisp as uniformed lads
whose pale bones heather no man’s land;
napkin smoothed over my knee
again. Blether tumbles
from my lips.
Small wonder that
I come out of darkness
and fall like a thunderbolt.