I sit and I am empty, the walls,
bone-white, more like crying faces

in the dark before I open the door,
see the stars flinging themselves from the sky

and the moon resting on the branches of the willow tree
great eye, staring, full, at the cavern

in my chest anchored with a chain
that drags me to the bell tower

and no one thinks to pull me the other way
back, to where they reveal the light of

stained windows, and
lips red as berries that last for a day and shrivel

in snow that is frozen and--
shatters--

Long arms clutch midnight, cradle
a round silver fig leaf that I steal,

because I have nothing else but the silent screeches
of the toll I have taken, and

I cannot bear a life unfinished.