The Last Evening II
Ever night and the sounds of thunder — the red desert
Moved like a heavy heartbeat all around us as you slept.
I looked across the little gulf between us in the bedding,
Watched you sleep, motionless and deep, and breathing.
You were haunted as much as my reflection, trying to
Raise the living from the dead, rekindle banked fires
By escaping into the wild dark of dreaming on the run.
Something beautiful, always between but out of reach.
You woke and broke the image like a stone pitched on
Into a frozen pond, walking half naked to the window
And the light, unsatisfied and restless as the new dawn.
Everything, I wanted all of you but couldn’t take more
Than one flake of your life, seeing there still within the
Mirror-table a long mask shining like an ebony skull.
