Anulios

Black flowers of the sun

polarise in holes where light is not

their slim arms waving

in the chaos of solar winds.

A spilled geometry

orbiting the sun's red face

like the compound eyes of insects.

How lonely they must be,

and how empty

howling into being,

their absurdly flapping fall

to scream and implode on

the other side of sky,

exhaled from the thorax

of a burning bird.

How terrified they must be

turning above the buried city,

where shadows assume the form of lovers.

We were dancing, trying to grow horns,

but progress was slow, you said

because everything overflows

and we have forgotten how to pray.

Inside this empty animal all languages

are foreign. A snake flicks its tongue.

I hang stars on threads from a cage of fingers

for an audience of inner acrobats

and the moon watches, folding her icy wings -

she sees only holes dressed in light.

Don’t you understand?

I’m leaving this circus