How does one kill time, inherit
the poem that’s rolling in it, the nightingale is
striking down language with talons of steel



dust keeps blowing into the clock, snow
is keeping the afterbirth warm, freshly laid the egg
is unshelling itself on the red-hot slate



when love surrendered to death again, had spent
itself in someone else’s flesh, how
it would bleed if ink
were not so white –