passing strange food mouth to mouth

being in love no—not that the wind
doesn't still when you step outside

(someone has their hands over your mouth
in your mouth around your head someone
holds you as you fade)

like you were broken into saccades
like they had sliced up your senses

the trees harbour dark things
the night is a wild white train driving
into its own abdomen
—digital craqelure shatters above

rains down glass and ice
see here is your face your thousand faces
in the rain memory wake here at nightfall
where the hares dance dusk dawn grasp
with tiny hands we come running again
to your arms hold me hold me unbreathing
in the shallow brown water

below us shapes flick
not so in love that you wouldn't know it
nor so we fade as the barking of dogs
over forest rides love is a mouthful
of pine needles the feel of a wet pelt
the stench of the other
—blood in the snow
hold me there beneath the snow

until the choirs have passed by
—again at dawn the thing on the bedhead watches
every day now it grows more vivid

soon it will speak
in the empty house
that no one will approach

.