The Flicker Girls

You! you are on fire! - lithe girls -

With all the life that is

Leaving me, my strung-out wolf-soul

Wandering a life, now wandering,

Leading me down to its smoke-wrecked shores.

In crisp September

Burn as I - my yearning world -

Never burned

In its sheltering wake

Leaf-deep, my storm quaked

And I could not break the tree-tall shadows

Keeping my all, from your all…

So no;

There is no breeze for this ash-blasted wood;

No bright joy for me now -

You’re wearing it -

Inside the sharp, alarming, closed forest of youth;

Stark temptresses, dancing,

Full-naked, and ebullient...

Half-smiling, to somebody... just beyond...

Not seeing me - no, not at all -

Now sliding away...

(Oh how it is - harsh beauties - that this world will wash itself,

With ourselves, with our worlds

And leave us - dry -

As bones in its breeze).

sept 14