Lip-prints on your
fragments, your
fossils, fostered in my secret
places, found in private
books and drawers,
clean, beautiful and old,
vessels from Before —
before everything dissolved in the millennial acid.
Accidents, artefacts,
individual and cold.
My lips are still warm — hey,
I’m warmer than Before, I’m burning with it —
and I would do now what I didn’t then,
would fly on my jets and light your sky with my eyes —
but all I can give you are lip-prints
on the glass,
on the cold old glass.
(First published in WordThirst)