Through the door broken open: smoke,
honeysuckle, ashed-over daffodils.
Nearer the coast fires barricade brush
into blackness. Your eyes clot
like knots of wax carved out
in the unmelting light. A hiss
under the floor. This is the under
-belly of our days: mercy too old for us
drained into gutterstream, a shallows
raking grooves into the soot. You
lie motionless in the morning.
A bundle of tendrils. By noon
you winnow out of the open
door & leave behind a lump of wax
too soft for the light to blade
into dying twice in one day.