Attempt, in this way, the fat world’s dispersal,
with words no less low for being the more correct,
guesses of one versed in the tilting shadows.
Attempt an embrace, delayed upon a lie,
the hesitation of a bridge made suddenly
real and wind-swung,
between a word for near and one for far,
the corruption of gestures meant to heal.
What is half-desired, and only half-desired,
is not purity but desolation, which,
however starved, however heartsick,
retains the nuzzle and the smell,
the unclean, deeply human memory,
a trace greater than shadows.
Hell is not the others, heaven is.
For them alone are little suicides delivered up,
the brief puff and curl above the ashen tribute.
Compelled to savage the heart’s soft swell,
to flame an exit where its triumph lies,
time’s fatiguing tenderness beats down
my last resolve and lays its brief ironic shadow
on my dust.