falling

behind the waterfall
the world is a blue cowl,
dark bell of spray,
and we can read the names of past lovers
initials etched into the sandstone
the crude, empty hearts
fashioned like unearthed artifacts
from primitive times.

your hair plastered to your forehead
and your earlobes honored with the tiniest globes of water –
this place smells of damp words
which cling to the walls
like nurslings.

lampshade
we are kept
we are promised
indelible and blue
we hold hands in this blue, pentacled womb

our clothes sticking to our skin like postage stamps,
your fingers long and creeping,
like wasps stricken with cold.
the sound is defeaning
yet beneath it all
I can hear you breathe.

and night falls – it always falls,
the cooling sun dislodged, like a pulled tooth,
and the branch-tips lose their filaments.
we emerge from behind the waterfall
stalk along the ridge,
where the flower are puckered
like sour mouths.
gossip and smalltalk in the trees

and the downy owls cast their eyes about,
unknowing yellow systole of the night,
filling up blue chords
you wink in and out –
an indecisive, perishing
flame.