For Timothy Yu 

Plastic-sheathed roses embroider the dark.
                                       Set to volplane
we take photo-triptychs, each of the other.
Moments of daring oscillate in the strangers
we become.                
And arms betray us,
they link our assembly of states, ventriloquised,
cravassed by cloud, echoes, reason’s
sastruga faults, whole continents of inaccuracy
rumoured, unrumoured.

Making for the 336, syllables cleft as we inhale
olfactory flakes, a wrapping scrapes the asphalt
                       in our roan-coloured quarter.  
Parting, of course, is not
sinking like some Titanic hybrid, cobalt-feathered
favouring métissage,
but a cold coming—    
So riddled —are we? 

View this poem on The Disappearing »