The shade of Anton's skin
The magicians burn the wicks down
to the sticks of their fingers and the color

of his words take shape on the air like
birds. He leaves me haunted by the

shade of his skin sometime later when
meteors crown us with miters and halos

and we are conjoined by the roots together
in the space of stripped time, Dalian clocks

melting in persistent emancipation, devoid,
and independent of us. Each word spoken

is left as a bone on the sand, or a match to
quicken the wick held between bony fingers

and myself, hands handed down from grandmothers
and skin influenced by the weather.