Deceased loves have been daring to visit me
Inside my insomniac vigil.
One brushed my breast with an orchid
The blueblack of a bruise,
Withered petals
Breaking into dust against my flesh.
One kissed my neck
With grey, icy, smoke-tainted lips.
Their unwelcome clairvoyance
Cannot be denied.
My ruined lover sleeps in our silky red sheets,
Becoming increasingly transparent.
When he leans into visibility
And I can see
At least
The shape of what was once a man.
He says loving me was his imagination,
Recites a list of my character flaws.
He cups his hands so tenderly
(As he once held my face
The day he said we were soulmates)
And scoops up the silence of the floral room
Slowly and without mercy
Attempting to bury me alive.
But I have been talking to scientists
Who have charted out the approaching storm,
The deceptive calmness of the sea,
Sharks washing up on the shore,
Birds of prey falling from the sky,
The decibel of silence
That keeps a man awake, shrieking.
