Separate rooms.

From the mangled cage of voice

I pull and dress my children, precious imitators

Muddying the brazen white of fear.

The grit cuts, and the wide earth watching

Sends sweat to tend with salt

Until I am clean and stung, eroded to his eye.

A face is dissected, puzzle lines drawn

Over a spring of balloons that hiss

To cupped little deaths, fallen from play.

My lungs and my lightness creep away

As shadows through the keyhole

Of a once-frequented chamber, and so

Lips may not bloom in their ribbons

For locks are cold: they re-define

Me to the reluctant muse, whose steps

Are fading as his paintings

Are greying with the sucking rays

Of too many days.