For those who know where the willow does not weep—

                    i.

Flickering breaks of morning-after
     suture together unlocked lips picked
     apart by fingertips dawn splinters

                    ii.

To search silences for echoes of
     dissonant extravagances fists
     offer kisses, insurance against

                    iii.

This getting more miserable than
     it really feels, this Our sobering
     tomorrows until both disappear

                    iv.

Too together in the silvering
     to sever what this mirrors, two wholes
     breath half-hesitant, half-relieved, fills

                    v.

Holding each other’s burdens, we mould
     decrepit, bereft of innocence,
     how day breaks with scorch we do not scorn

                    vi.

Faces taking in all rays the way
     flags half-raised signal mandated grief,
     conveys without speech, what greed it takes

                    vii.

To date a man in this age of dusk
     swallowing, how throats of galaxies
     do blades of glass milk rusts, respect, Selves,

                    viii.

Guesses, estimates, as to the worth
     of so much hurt endured in the ache’s
     exchange of fire for what we thought were

                    ix.

Stars, this return of light’s warmth after
     burning hard what we thought never would
     burn off, the spark of Us your candle-

                    x.

Mouth’s constellating promises drip
     and dissipate into millions of
     shards it will takes millions of years to

                    xi.

Melt and coagulate, to reclaim,
     alchemize to vessels to cradle
     our hearts when they again are by our

                    xii.

Other lovers ever after scarred,
     take, then, this peace a stranger’s bedroom
     recedes beneath the way roots do trees.