Sketches of a Dead Man Breakfasting with God -- Star Black

XIII

The night is insensate—
fallen, felled. A susurrus of bats
ripples its ink well, the tips of their wings quills,
a velvet calligraphy between lapsed leaves.
A slow turning away
from a Beatles-laden yesterday
demurs to Lot's wife.
It is too late to leave, too soon to stay,
in the vastitude, in the black lake
stapled to absent swans.
The moon is chopped in half.
Bugs in black-outs snooze in the lax umbra.
The past has swallowed up enough.
Its underglaze does not amaze the open-eyed.
They request a butterfly, noisy details,
comedy videos that purr.
My love daylessly dreams of what he's known below the trees,
rocket-kit details,
a white orchid corsage.