gardens great,
with fountain hearts (like his),
weeping and drinking of themselves endlessly.
he may fill these labyrinths with
orchard walks, long and lonely
oh, yes
ever so, lonely..
over stones the color of his own cold skin.
pensive wandering
under archways, mirroring
the spider bones of her hands.
hung-heavy-full of empty candle wax,
shall his chandelier soul be left with ever more demands.
°°°
he may fill his
standing army of windowsills
(score after score of stained glass soldier,
star-studded-sunset armor)
with porcelain pots
cupping in their cream-round palms
all the plants she could ever name.
but they've not touched the earth in years,
his hands, and the loam of the sills is not quite the same.
°°°
and let it be known
that thrones sink when cast
into a river,
that their superfluous plum cushions
take whitewater in in great draughts.
long(ing) looks
from high above in the spires
(jutting like stab wounds through the eventide clouds,
like midsummer rain falling perversely),
down at the turbulent tail
he cannot sail.
no matter the number of thrones
tossed like high-society skipping stones, to very, very little avail.
°°°
and he may fill his quarters
with creatures, with her doe eyes
and pomegranate tongues, too.
with necks like ivory towers,
same striking thistle laughs and highly trained singing voices
and feet wrapped in priceless rags
soaked in crystal bowls
of collected-dewdrops dancing.
he may fill his eyes
with their bodies and bare skin-
his ears
with their wind chime silence-
all the night, half the morning
with every bit of her they can spin into themselves
using some maid's sewing needles
and no small amount of bargains.
still his ribcage will remain hollow, for the bellows inside it
simply cannot be powered by foghorn-lilted ghosts and opulent jargon.
°°°
the world shall rise in quietly-breathing slopes
and sink again into the marshland sand.
he may riddle it
with turrets and faded blood-colored flags,
he may (in his cumulonimbus carriage)
roar down every street
and every round town square.
he may set all hundred pens
of hounds
upon the perfumed trail of her footsteps.
he may fill his boots with the memory of her feet.
but the trail runs cold and they disappear
into cemented mist three quarters down the street.
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