Supplicant to basalt's bare upon nascent Stone
Prostrate—pleading "Is there fear In Sirius or Altair shown?"
Arms bent against brackish tides—the Flesh of Apis' hide
No savoured marrow, meat, or bone Can mend what striations trace—
Though sipped of course the Wax-bound Horn
A bronze Refrain, of Hunger's call
The supping silence, carves the Form
And leaves the Tide to take it all

I climbed from the sheets to witness a light frame of heavy breathing.
Street light pierced the floating curtain, a light filament of crooked thread,
and a gauzy haze caressed the faded floor.
I gather myself in the kitchen, and above the sink, wretch anxious fumes
down the plughole and hear the gurgling response, mocking and infantile
in its hermeneutic and gleeful rejoinder.
I look for a cross made from the lights of the tower cranes
that sit like cherubim at the gate to protect the sky beyond,
half clouded in cruciform stature.
I look for a cross in the black screen from the sofa, sat quietly and on standby,
like a message from star-destined beings made of wings and teeth
and unknowable things and forces a nervous and somatic reaction.
No solace, find I in the twilight,
No solace, find I in the lamp-ruined and ruddy-painted sky.
A beacon will find its way though, of this I am sure,
to illuminate the viscous tar that sits amid and beyond greying smog,
to rest easily on a cloud of one's own,
to return to a breathing frame and comfort.