Winter desert.

Across meadows, down alleyways, 

In the secret innards of dry stone walls

Earthly sky currents snort and

Curse, pausing only

To raise the lash again

And widen eyes that stray out

From fists and bundles

Where silence tends to darling buds:

A flurry of sympathies

Cower before looming shadows at war. 

Twisted in to centres of centres, 

Gleaming in the warmth of forts

Where mild beauty

Hums up close,

I miss the sprawl of lichen.

Its acid is my heart's young chill

On that birch's dirty white, 

On the pearly cheeks of

Fading photos

Which smell of stories.

Fingers on lips 

We shall not speak,

But listen now,

To the wind, its screech.

Hold hands in tins

As though the soup of breath 

Could bewitch the threat

Of jagged edges.

The peeling souls of streets

See Eve alone, the braver

Of living mines and minds.

They dally not, show rags to hearts - 

A thousand tiny mirrors.