if your hand were placed among other hands
in my particular table of night
in a place of few stars
to draw my eyes down to open cliffs
or the falling tempest of already you
in whose veins I would always rush
back to the heart of the tottered sea
where your soft body may still carve
the strides and wells
that become its contours inclined to me—
I would say:
may it never sweep the absence of desire
nor the perished dust of my breaking days
but perform its annotation or requirement still
to the futile immolation of lamp and moon
let’s evermore pretend this is the beginning
new worlds don’t excite me nearly as much
