There's an ill-wind ascending the stairs

Climbing the spine of my home

Crashed out in carrier bags, I promised you never to roam

But all that I say is made of smoke

As if every word I ever spoke

Dispersing in blusters and whispered away

The hovering torsos of my teens

Remembered in deconstructing scenes

I call on them now by a tempering moon

Marked in a darkening room, awaiting the mumbler's lull

In a night worn as thin and frail as a hummingbird's humble skull

As dignity half-forgets my name

The hovering torsos come again

My sun-flowered heart in a state of unrest

Everyone's archive weighs them down

And even a tourist in this town

Would smile just to know how to temper this moon