Your warm fingers graze my cheekbone,
Stop, trace its shape under wax-pale skin
Your eyes, full, rise to mine, emptied.
For I am not here, nor have I ever been
And though your tenderness were matchless
I’d remain, as is a Grecian marble,
Touched but untouchable;
Eyes white, without pupils, without recognition,
Formed with a sealed mouth, lips never made to part
And locked in world that’s vanished or that never was
At times stood in static rapture in my ancient dream
At times appalled at my dislocation, voiceless in misery
The beat of a bloodless, rhythmic heart, a slow rebellion against silence
Secrets imprisoned and inscribed in my spare, ungenerous lines.