The days of kissing are over there is music now with the sadness of walking out of step no rustle of magpie wings in the garden no reflection of poppies in your eyes just a frayed sack of bones and a whisper of memory in place of breath under an anaemic ray of moon
lungs once swelling like the bellows of a gypsy’s accordion tremble and flail gasping for bruised air and there is music unbuttoning my heart letting loose shadows and the taste of walnut wind, sea and bone all that came before this republic of death all that reminds me of regret, shifting continents skin against skin
an archipelago rising out of a milk sea cheeks marred by the geography of ruin quiver against the frail light
where your gaze once raged two coffins stand instead smelling of cherry and there is music endless, looping orbiting we listen listen until breath leaks into the mercy of night.
168 The Paris-American
Lillian
Necakov is the author of Hooligans and The Bone Broker (Mansfield Press) Hat
Trick (Exile Editions) Polarioids (Coach House Books) along with several other
titles. Her works has been published in Canada, the US, Europe and China. In
the 1970s, Necakov used to sell her books on the street of Toronto. These days
she works at the Toronto Public Library and runs the Boneshaker Reading Series.