Columbarium for Past Autumns

    For a time the home was lost to me

my mouth forged in the night as I dreamed away

the barriers—stars lengthening the line of my gaze

               beryl bones rushed to storm—

To my eternal right clouds in immediate rotation

mother mutating past clay and desire

               too light to form

                   too dead to surrender

     like meat made tender by memory—

                                                effortless

my head at the helm towards pardon

               my hands passing through water

     her eye on the wretched edge seeding air

with every intention of life—

such mischief even from the wilds of death

from the alcoves full of metal and shadowy glass—

    dust heavy on my crown—

    What I pretend to gather here still dies

past the trees—absent from birth—the promise

to lie by dusk—to set ablaze the home—

               veritable fire coming west

     for the lonely shores—

In the periphery I’ve not returned before—

have stayed lost just to retain the impossibility

     of ends—a march to bury what remains—

and no I don’t fall in—I just lean weakly

               into the weeds