the pages of the years open
like a bible;
swift calligraphy of desire,
requiems for forgetting...

there is a bookmark
where you used to be.

i don't know if i ever convinced you
that i was telling the truth, or
if you even cared

but why do i, like history, keep
returning for the wounded?
rose petals float
on the rainwater
in the birdbath, in the

book of lost entries
there are crossed out words
on haunted pages.

is this, then, what is left
of the dream of beauty?

but i still hope for days that are
soft at the edges,  hands closed
on wind-stunned leaves,
the abrasions of history

prophets of salvation