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.