(i)
What day knits
night forgets.
What day traces
night erases.
By day, threads,
by night, tracks.
By day, silk,
by night, loss.
By day, cloth,
by night, fault.
(ii)
Day’s plot
in night’s yarn
or night’s plot
in day’s yarn
as I spin:
fidelity by a thread.
(iii)
By day thimbles.
At night no one.
(iv)
And she did not say
I am no longer yours
I gave my heart to quiet a long time ago
while your heart swayed in travel
as I waned
amongst the night’s drapes
you traversed unsuspected distances
the charmed bodies of women whose strange language
I could use to spin a shroud
of our common tongue.
And she did not say
in the beginning I thought of you
first as one who burns before
a dying campfire
later as one who, remembering, visits childhood shores
and then as one who recalls a long summer
and later as one who forgets.
And she also did not say
loneliness can come in many forms,
as many as there are foreign lands,
and it is always welcoming.
