straight lines only
no curve or arc
to double back

no circle in sight
from which silence might slip
like the strap of a dress
off a shoulder
one summer field

a shape
signifying nothing
but a puzzle of itself
made in the box of morning
untangled over years

from each and every corner of which
is visible white space
as if here and now
were equal lines
fused the way lovers are fused
for as long as it takes
to pass through the eye of love
to recover, to egress.

Brushstroked husband
and brushstroked wife
finding in skewered union
a defence of loneliness

sectioning in four equal parts,
as if it were a family,
that safe place
once being
full of itself
now cornered, quartered, hinged

on a mark that closes on
common darkness
the heart of which is silence, certainly,
a need expressed in what distends
beyond what will not be
acknowledged
what will not be
allowed

the length and breadth of days
that bleed into other days

on which occurs
an ardent solitude—

windows opening and closing the one sky.

I may begin to fold myself
along four even lines
into the centre of those days

to learn how a life may come to rest
on the absence of a life

as crosshairs train on a blank page

as arrows turn in on themselves

as the blades of a bedroom ceiling fan
come to

a perfectly obvious stop.