I knew a girl who asked
in a voice as soft as the
lighter bits of evening
to make everything clear
like before, she’d said
when we were laying on
beaten blades of grass
two entangled roots of
cloth and flesh and
the only thing on her lips were
tinysounds and mine.
It was much later then, and
the moon had become only a dim lamp
perched by her bed but
I told her I would try
so in a small castle made of silence
rocked by the crashing wave
of each passing car
I did.
But when I woke next
just before the sun
might burn her form
into my true memory
her bed held only the impression
of a cold, hollow ghost
and her clarity the spiderweb cracked
windowglass letting in the morning chill.