The threadbare days—

amber drops of an era, frozen
golden and glassy.


They soften and fuse, in a skull’s cold corner
into hazy impressionist oils

I still see their embers sometimes,
clouded

no renewal but smoke.


We had time—

our faith a plaster blindfold, while

our fear
cowered beneath stones on winding sandbars

and all else within us
bloomed the sharper.


We thought
—we knew—
our love could crack the globe

and render some opal
of meaning

of forever.


But the rich glow wanes,
the nectar evaporates

and I feel my days drawn down
around me

like rain-mist,
like falling feathers,


a lifetime folds
over
and over
itself.