I come at you with a mouth full of black ink
knowing i could never hold you prisoner through
the strangled rhythm of words. my love goes out,
a black light in a dark room and i'm left staring
blankly at the slim book of memory,
the softening vines i'd grown used to:
your palm above my ear, tongues bickering,
your white face taking me in like the moon
(i subsist on meagre eating, you too)

too blue and too soon you ebb away from me
like a baseball or a small meteor
or a snake in the wind.
you're going, going (gone. on the continent
of the mind there is a steep ravine.
it is the silence i am gorging on.
muffled breathing,
balloons within balloons.)