One

To live for ashes, the gold
Ferris wheel inevitability of phoenix feathers
Glittering red from any least
Curl of the toe, every progressively
Less significant thought
She’s ever had, will ever have,
And yet to live.

For some there is no present.
Her library of faces, built to bend
Around a cross whose arms go nowhere
Squared, shelved to the absence
Of a breaking point with books meticulous,
No back covers, no conclusion—age,
The yellow of their oft-thumbed pages, the way
One story blends and echoes
With another until all are simply smaller
Pockets in the cloth of a single tale
Tucked into the cracks of a world
Only her owl-necked mind can create—

Every face for her distinct, yet
All gleaming with the same iron scaffolding
Shine of fairy tale she has burnt
With desperation into every chalk facet
Of every torquing cheekbone,
Whispered like horror into the basin shallows
Of each leant temple in turn;
She writes the stories,
And they become one in a way
That she will never be.

Here is madness,
Every moment perfect
And alone, crystallized
Into rock candy fire
Obsession; to dwell, to return,
To move always in reverse.
In this there is no forward march.

2/03/09