diary of a woman who vanished

bodiless

above a vast night ocean

I dreamed you were lost

in the enormous sadness of water

between the slide of monstrous ships

I called out

but the air grew heavy

with lines, triangles

the endless

creation and dissolution

of inner sky

formless

I woke with eleven

luminous strangers

peeling mandarines by silent windows

for a moment glimpsed

your ravaged lion's head

your bright blackbird eye

but I was mesmerised

by a vase of sun-edged magnolias

by drifts of dust motes falling

in afternoon light

like a thousand

silver egrets

your movement is sharp

precise

and I wake with your hair

wound through my fingers

the smell of burning cloves

in your mouth

you hiss

where are you?

what are you?

but I am

voiceless

except for the language of snakes

the dry rattle of their digestion

you speak and it begins to rain

have you forgotten?

we live only where the breath turns

my left eye closed:

a white horse wades up to its breast in blood

my right eye open:

Sirius rises – ashes return to branchless trees