box

i.


Sundays were short and exact,
tombstones and photographs -
of the family dog,
the candles, the trees,
the ash, Grandmother's hands
as bare as a naked peach,
the clock's hands, brittle,
pours into an hourglass,
sustaining the dead weight of years,

ii.


you brought the scent of old rain,
when you kissed my hair,
you took the rain with you,
the blue trickle of another love,
down the hollow of your neck
drowns the flowers of grief,
unfurling thick in my throat,
for me the squawk of a trampled dream
the white lilies of sleep years ago