As if you were counting,

counting your pearls

on a strange shore

and could not be moved.

A great wind has swept me empty.

I linger in the halls

of battered frames

and ailing family portraits.

Here is a web that glistens

with evacuated mind.

Here are your chess-carved

partners.  Play.

No thanks to the chain of talking rectangles

regurgitated from some geek's

delirium, no thanks

to the scum with lipstick,

weak snips of a turning wheel.

I'll take the path between

the fallen piles, pick out

the twisted logs

that interlock.  And watch

the light curve

around many Earths

to grow its shape

in your corner,

little woman from the faint towns

who resounds without clamor.