Carbon

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.