we are here squarely in the realm of love.

everything has devolved into
an excavation of wholesale damage;
it is a scurvy, an astonishing alibi
of correspondences,
the underwater form of
a salacious hand.

in the kingdom of dead time, of love,
in the lost chance of a wild tryst
and the territory of an invalid hour,
a reluctant memory ignites the heart.

it is in the poems of prose, of confusion,
that the curious involuntary memories
of skin, shimmering, illuminated,
are piled up and burned.

despite a heart of defeat,
innocence is a holy visitation.