When this face loses favor,
and hand its urge to groom and cure,
when this razor leaves ashes on this savage face,
not yet killed with age, though unsteady

skin grows more loose, steadily,
I could wait with less argument
for half-eaten moons,
for clouds that stay too long.

As lashed alabaster rots to jaundiced,
bloodshot stone, the private epoch
turns to a collection of memories – a house of bones
that comes to know the coming disregard,

a strand of hair painted over that
knows the mildewed wall is more than metaphor.