pass me the matches so i can burn,
rather than think again
of all the things that wither and sink,
or flutter away like ash in the wind,
like water swirling down a drain,
the way love leaks out of a marriage,
like air seeping from a tyre
so you have to push the old bike home
instead of gliding there,
like everything that eats your care
and leaves you empty and older,
frail and cold as frost on thin glass,
and lost in a leafless wood
where the heart must forage
like a hungry deer
on thorny winter weeds and canes...
i feel it shrink inside my chest
until it rattles there against my ribs,
like a cast-off shell,
like dice in a cup before the cast,
like seeds that wait for rain.
