Gin

The linkages (bare-wired) gone watt & red hot,

sun-stamped earth, wait for me seamstress

of the double hemisphere, ruby-clawed hopeful bird.

Berry-ginner of the lower Guadalupe, when in flight

you danced my twin dreams of you: cross-current dandelion

freed of concentration / unbidden wind-driven dart.

Wick-feathered funky dropped-down smoothed-over

thing, light chasing from your movement, announcing

your arrival in broad colors. The stars reconciled & remitted:

there should have been no world not blue for you, warmed

about a dew-dipped belly, caramel & yellow dappled

Pekinese of the Pouty Lip, but beakwise—the whole

stage gone sour beneath: the proliferation of garbage piles,

the railway intercoastal and toxic sludge puddles. If I

found the right words (redressed?) I could keep you

safe in language, syllable bound & yes, language a trap

in itself, validation through intonation, not much braver

than silence, but hopeful. Man’s unmatched missions of mutability

unwound your wristwatch, warbler, leaving you fobbed

& forgotten. It’s hard to convince the living the value of

the near-dead not dying when death confirms their living;

no chain of being but a coat which fits us all just once.

The linkages burn & burn—a white needle thinning

through thinning fabric like a javelin unraveling air.

The world’s great coat tightens like a lozenge in the throat.