[Red-hot and tear-kissed]

Red-hot and tear-kissed under mask

with steel miles ahead in wait

and then a new city.

Now you are relegated to observer,

My gallery of waves framed behind glass.

And I gaze too

At frozen events, pale memory,

Pendant in silicon amber.

Plain and varied multitudes of senses strung out in series and enfolded into dense coils,

Chopped up and worn away until I forget how it sounds when you clear your throat,

Or the face you pull in the mirror when fiddling with your hair.

You could trace a line, like a long sleek ribbon, through all lived history

that would show the immortal endeavour to preserve,

To find stability that will outlive,

To commit love to memories less fallible than our own,

To find new ways to hold,

To hold without hands.

But serene pain is found in the effort to learn to relinquish,

To let go of leaden years as though a mouthful of smoke,

To find new ways to no longer hold.