Whispers from edges of lifeless fingers
     linger their skeletal vestiges of
     existence along pages of a book
     no one picks up, a novel churned out by
     an unseen hand, inevitably burned
     by a crowd in a year when summer ran
     through charred spheres like rain, leaking sun’s flame with
     licking drops of pain, mascara moments
     wiped clean from time’s face, memory’s tablet
     erased by one work thought to contain
     an imperfect model of the universe,
     but one in which human interest meets
     immortal pores, words sweating into them
     backwards, reversing natural order,
     wet shadows spilled like drink offerings through
     profaned performance of an unwritten
     ritual tradition dictates will free
     them—all captive peoples imprisoned by
     unarticulated thoughts, filling flesh
     and flooding skulls with what’s oftener called
     knowledge—relics of love translation lost.