I feel myself unravel
like a summer skein of hues
far too gentle for the Winter
and his flight of dying silvers,
fox-fur reds. I melt my head
on a crumbling leaf — and press
its jewels of ice into my cheek.
Sopping chill, flowering bleak —
float my bones on a sluggish stream.
And perchance grant me one last dream
of kinder solstice. Echoes
equinoctial, the caterpillar’s shrug,
creep not from my vaulting memory.
Send me traces of Spring,
pigeoned parcels on the breeze,
as the sapphire lanterns dim.
And be kind, jigsaw snow
to my body as it slows and bleeds
violet. Drink me up — a blank carnation
in bower’s bowl. Cast me away,
a spray of sleeping carbon,
and tell me not of my slow-dispersing soul.
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