i.

What reflection rusts on this knife
embellishes nothing but kisses
thrust by tongues daggering anger

dangling from them onto flesh it
pressed and presses, yet even still,
after death betrays his visit,

projects from within this image
splinters of some visionary
deed others left unfulfilled, last

lovers loss pleasures forgetting,
no one else worth as much effort
as this, as warming metal with

                    ii.

breath until breathless, incisive
concession to give as presence
such exceptional sacrifice

as my double image did then,
in that instance the importance
of taking in impossible

glances manages to mimic
living’s vanishing until it
doesn’t, not so much, no, never

again, man, in his changes, trusts,
ever becoming something else,
someone, more or less than, even

                    iii.

himself, transformative returns
toward former forms when, having it
performed, such crimes de cœur as this

magic surgery perverses
which restores, curses passionate
as their ancient tablets unearthed

attest once an intention’s been
established, that those men who came
before quested for just as much,

forebears who, by some others’ own
foresight ignored, endeavoured then,
from lovers’ hearts, to purge sins held.