Us 2026-7-18

An elegy to me from someone in urgent need of an elegy

Spring
I kidnapped your breath, vagrant sprite,
and lit my candle with its borrowed spark.
You turned, and blessed me with your sight—
Spring’s twin white ark made hair-kari of the dark.

Summer
You held my hapeless head within your hand;
the dark blushed scarlet at your least command.
O general, my champion, my sweet—
I bowed. I bent. I melted at your feet:
a penny ice dissolving in your heat.

Autumn
You begged my thinning breath to linger yet,
though down came earth to claim its debt.
I plucked a poppy as the plane went down
and pinned it to my breast—a gaudy god
resplendent in its crimson paper gown.
As earth rose up, I kissed its painted head:
“Turn us back around.”
It bit. I bled.

Winter
I cursed the marble thief who stole your name,
then laughed: my sleight of wit reversed the claim.
I pressed my ear against the barnacled years.
Silence crouched—
as when my cheek came home to the wrong chamber
of your chest: a black telephone,
cut at the root.
I told you—told you, told you—I would never
love a man of stone.