Crutches and Crosswords

bees, a face full—
i wake, clapping two hands to life and coughing
like chalkboard erasers


and when i’m restored
i find that someone spilled sunlight
down the back of your dress,
along the tapered canyons of bone—


they too have been eroded, nibbled at,
sculpted by insistent waters, skin yawning as if to say
this is how you are, and must be.


and the ceiling blades repeat the chorus
drawing you up into the white vacancy above the bed
the most naked of space


again i wake, and even you have retreated
into the corners and silhouettes
of the furniture, hat racks, empty clothing, everything—


and i am the fraction’s remainder
when divisions of dust and skin have settled
the residue of the hard to reach,
awake and absent and sorry.