If I leave, it will not change the dampness
underneath this wooden floor, how unswept

it has grown. The slant beneath has deepened—
whole overtures, orphaned. What is ever lost.

Estrangement dilates, the sound of hooves
against a frontier. Late bloomer. But this is not

that place. A ricochet instead—the business
of residue, a tango’s first sidestep. Returning,

a draft, float & fracture—it will long for the canon,
it will hum. Like the first bullfight, when the crowds

celebrated the slow edging of the lance—a sport
of separation. I say this as I would explain the jukebox,

the birdcage—an artisan cupped in static.
Measuring the parts, body mass divided into fragments

& lynx eyes etched onto an ocean, inwards—
embers, I’m coming home.