Coronach

My copperplate caress moves and rests over your face,

pushing the invisible ink of my love into your flesh,

plastic as cold clay. My nail-nib impresses into it

a deranged cuneiform. Meanings hide in your wrinkle-runes.

Gilgamesh found no consolation other than knowledge

when he learned the universality of Enkidu's fate. Metallic type

repeats the formula here, and the circumlocutions

of the order of service surround us. The constellated tears

evaporate and leave ornamental memories like sand roses

retrieved from an arid and unrelenting grief, but in the end

the stars understand we are creatures of light:

these imperfect instruments - hand, lips, gender -

co-mingled ashes of a universal love. Back then

your kiss upon my brow seeped through to plant

its meningeal tattoo. Open up my forehead

and all you'll see is you. Open up my mind

to find you shining through. Some scars

never heal, but give birth to something new,

to stir us from our infantile solipsism.

Now this coffin is a desert ditch,

and you are a miracle of water that has settled there

and I will heave my mighty draught of stars

from the desert sky reflected in your stillness.