We shall never again be as we were.

You, for instance, are missing an ear;
I wring a kitchen towel for my conscience.

The tiny, bankrupt kingdom
            of our secret has disappeared from maps.

Sadness a gap in the sky

                        where truth clawed through.

From knowing to ignorance,
            a secret’s track of smoke
     is a letter eaten by fire

                          or the path of a bee

           flower to
                  flower to flower
                                      to flower,

                                   never repeated.

When my hand rode
             your sleeve white walls
were peacocks’ plumes.

                         Rain was a sacrament
           as our eyes magnified

                          the poor world         into plenty.