Could I have seen them,
I’d tell you
in words—tunes—or hues.
but there’s more an eye can do

an eye can want.

cobblestones—
wooden benches
Skeleton trees, and pretty profiles
Sometimes, crimson skies
or crimson dirts— liquids even.
—she touches all she wants

          she wants all—
glimmering,
       teasing, deceiving—
Black boots on cement old
—yellowed pages sewed together.
  she wants all.

an eye can breathe.
And that was where they came
in caravans.
—inhale

perhaps snow-covered grass
   Or cracked desks
Perhaps trees laden with beings or
just—nothing.

Could I have heard them,
I’d tell you
in clinking bangles— carved ice— or weeping flutes
Could I have—
—could I.

they walked in— nay
flew. Nay, swam.
nay—
Could I have fathomed—

Carried torches, I think.
they marched deep into my caverns
—carried mirrors they.

what of the paw-prints engraved in mud
Crumpled letters
    lying naked in puddles— nay.
my caverns bore silk smoke over velvet nights.
dark—
and dreary and dying
and dead—

but they marched still
And their torches hissed.
Sapphire boots on sooty rugs—
     They marched.
They sang—nay.
painted— nay, moulded a
world out of cinders—
Nay.
Could I have touched, I'd know—

on every turn and every crease
They placed a mirror pure  
    as an infant’s tear
—or maybe a sharpened gem
who would dare to know—

In every dungeon and every hall
Their stares flickered like neon serpents
—nay.
Sun-licked butterflies, nay.
halos above mountains chaste—nay—
Could I have felt—

But one
—exhale
and they were no more.
Went into the rain perhaps,
or past moonlight
    maybe in pine trees under the sea
Could I have tracked them down—

but there’s more an eye can do
An eye can want.
light—
Between the dawn,
    between the darts
Children in smiling yards
light—
   inside coal,
Inside a broken sword—

She touches all she wants
   —she wants all.
and a ray falls on the mirror
and the mirror tosses it to the next
  and next, to the next—
Sun knits a web inside me.
beams and glitter—

Like a child’s song
or a kitten’s roar
—a war cry
Could I laugh like a spear
or mould the starlight into words
I’d tell you—

but the rays marched on
into me
   swift like kites
warm like— like iron.
nay—a mother’s hug
Nay,
beating drums
—or an armour’s clatter, nay.
Could I have known—

But there’s life in piercing screams
—And I was burning
But is it not a privilege
to watch the world wither
from the very roots of the flames?
to be their very mother—

when your wings melt
and towards the ground you
wilt
but you’re flying still—