I asked for strength to carry on with burnished shoulders
in this ruby silence, which follows tears given only
to a corpus of letters quenched in fire:
the prose-touch of lips on coverlets, asking
for this season to roll over and over
Like this soil I hold in my hands, these velvet follicles,
dust-strewn over empty fields of reason, no quarter:
this beached love, bleached sun of silvered
promises, curled hollows with your name
undone button by button .