*
Falling where the sun refills, its light
from somewhere in this darkness
someplace near the floor, your footsteps
eaten as shadows have always known
— ceilings are ice and stone and hunger
and valleys swallowing lush streams and songs.
Your shadow is thinner now
and still I can’t loosen it, not even at night
gnawing this rug, your heels and scent
— say something! feed this floor
as if it were a ditch
left open for my knees and listening.
*
Closer, my shadow
smells from broken apples, the closer
— it takes years.
Eventually I’m alone
— who needs the sun
always burning my footsteps
as if they come from a distance
brooding, afraid, helplessly
sifting for each other.
The night too stopped looking
scared off, ransacked
— my shadow can’t hold on.
Always in autumn, in footsteps
drinking cold water.
Standing is impossible :my shadow
closer, then closer
needs more and more darkness
to forget and the sun
who comes so far to die
hears this blackening frost
and blacker water.