I. Kalopsia

A postmortem photograph 
Showed you 
Incarnadine 
And I wondered when you are 
Reincarnated 
Will you remember the 
Viridian days 
That summer 
Or the onyx nights 
That wept stars 
For the sorrow you would stain 
My life with 
Obsidian sins 
That would creep onwards 
Oil seeping over water on a moonless tide 



II. Ataraxia 

Burlywood 
Soft 
Dusty 
Sepia brown 
There sit layers of sediment 
That should have been childhood 
All lost now 
In time we will gilt the edges
And remember 
Heliotrope days 
Lusty-gallant sunsets 
Tyrian nights where the stars 
Blazed 
Bone burning phosphoresce
And we could imagine 
We would live 
Unscathed 


III. Acatalepsy

Photographs of sex in public parks 
And upside down a blackbird perched on your upturned foot 
Would you tell me 
We didn’t walk upon the moon 
Or would you rather believe this 
We are wholly lost
And the world (whimpering) at its end
Burns