See how the firmament loosens
like a clod of earth                how the horizon

            crackles like two skulls wrapped in velvet
surely the shadow of a speaker

                             lying supine in snow or

you lying supine in sheets wrapped in the clear
            stars of an oil night        the memory

of speech like the mirror in shallow
            water which memory

                       the edge of your being

            being the edge of my language
surely              eyes glazed over and loosened

            from the filament
which flight     this one swap of syllable

                   o stasis
                   o shadow being
                   o painted picture glowing

           like a kumquat
how much the image of contrast        like when Polonius

           that royal pear
cried through the curtain and you sliced

           him in half to expose five seeds
                   arranged like a star

           the night’s reflection glistening off
his skin     the shadows of my legs

                   walking along the wall