How many years
have I waited
in this place–

no shadow
sheltering me,

no song
giving comfort,

only memory
holding me
in its closed hand?

Then one day
I asked a question,
threw it in the air

and there you were–
a creature, different
yet the same,

tortured by a demon
that has so many names
it thinks that it’s a god.

And so for you;

I’ll wait beneath
these paper trees
for all the sunsets left to me–
I’ll be the water in the fire,
the blackened stone,
the insect at the end of day
all leg and tender bone.