When the sun finds

your scars to travel

and you go down

to the lips of the water,

think of me sliding past the blade

of the envelope of space

hesitating to touch your little shoulder

with the boulders of the last avalanche,

the one that fills the field,

suspended in mid-motion at my back,

and our kisses held in prison

behind a false mirror, a neon promise,

a flask of golden alcohol

left behind on the coin-crushing rail,

where masks are hammered

and the strings of chastity

released into the doors of the rising current,

two letters twined in gilt

can stem the fall

dewdrop to ragged face

of the free ray

and the ravished republic.