i.

Flickering breaks of morning-after
suture together unlocked lips picked
apart by fingertips ripped from our
hearts to search silences for echoes
of spent extravagance this flesh
weathers until leathered as it works-
over like an art lost whenever
ours does not touch what desire wishes
to express but refuses to count,
the cost of loving too much getting
what we want and not loving enough

                    ii.

Melting quicksilver fetishists pool
sweat until it cools to coins they can
use to pay the ferryman his due
for ferrying them to a nude school
for lovers, fools, who never learned love
is made to give others new colour,
a quickening of pulse blush rubs off.