......

The floors of the apartment
aglow with burnished wooden sun
reflect a wandering stranger
who has stolen my slippers.
Ship's outlines shadow the walls
sails moving over hung photographs
he won't give them back.

I have to reach through his sadness
to take them, his fear of death
with all its plumage
intact or scattered.
His wormy stare.
My mask of delight
turns his chest to black ashes
and winks its way out, its history
of red clay from under the swingset,
glint of mica and low brightness
of lichen in dusk, and we are lost
in the mask together.

A hardened minnow from the anti-depths
of space drops out of its eyes
through the center of the body
and the floors ripple
glinting shattered light
to a gun on the overpass,
to watch a soul fall within binoculars,
and to take a slim jar of milk
from between his scorched ribs, to feed him with.