Seduction With Entropy

If you think I'm honest, speak to me
when it's night. I'll say anything
when my face is blank like a moon.
But not the scarred one stirring
the tide. A better moon, a sphere
of burnished bone. To that sky,
I'll lie through the open gate
of my teeth. I'll turn you
to tender gooseflesh. I'll serve
you on the table of your hidden
hunger. I'll find it the way
rain finds my roof each night
you take yourself away
to that land in which you are only
yourself. I began this
long ago, I'll say. It's precious like silk,
I'll whisper like the clock.
Like the clock, let us be
imperceptibly slowed,
let us watch the water never
boil. Darling, beyond
the loneliness of the moon
is dust, is the pulsar's faltering signal,
the only remainder
of what once could set fire to fire.
Nothing we know
will ever in return know us
for what we were
and how we burned.
If nothing else
I say is true,
let the ashes finally fall, we'll call it mercy.

Copyright © 2007 Paul Guest All rights reserved
from Pebble Lake Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission