of yourself
you have left only grief
shut in the bones
of days as they chatter
and fade into the moments
when you are so suddenly
gone, along the secret aqueducts
of credulous hours that echo
silver over mute
streams of paper, vertigo-heavy
in the steady vehemence of rain
that falls in colors of iron
over a distance of years,
tears whose warmth cools
redly in the gardens
of my severed veins,
and such sweet fetters
bind me closely
to the passageways of the soul
that lay dead myths
over doorways and paper thresholds
absorb the fragrant depth
of my ravaged acquaintance
with death, snatched
from the hand that gives
the echo back its breath,
in the tenacious hours
you have left of yourself.
2004 copyright Mari Laureano
you have left only grief
shut in the bones
of days as they chatter
and fade into the moments
when you are so suddenly
gone, along the secret aqueducts
of credulous hours that echo
silver over mute
streams of paper, vertigo-heavy
in the steady vehemence of rain
that falls in colors of iron
over a distance of years,
tears whose warmth cools
redly in the gardens
of my severed veins,
and such sweet fetters
bind me closely
to the passageways of the soul
that lay dead myths
over doorways and paper thresholds
absorb the fragrant depth
of my ravaged acquaintance
with death, snatched
from the hand that gives
the echo back its breath,
in the tenacious hours
you have left of yourself.
2004 copyright Mari Laureano
**Intoxicant to the souL**

