you have been sitting there
for 300 years, all thumbs and eyes
and stuff
in stone

why taper I have forgotten this
             the price for the ride
the sweatered dog’s stare

I gift familiar battlements
that habit: your silhouette

       halt in my hands
               ay
300 years ensconced
visiting my rounds

your eyes are stone
                                       and why

             …

embers are not stones, but rocks
that appear to be
swinging parabolically
             he says

if I were to beckon
which guard would come
                          KEEP OUT

I am writing to myself again

perhaps your lap will be
             split by the frame
half of your ecstasy mine
                          and flattened

(and yet
             pliable columns, electricity
             driven through with chain

I is a grapheme
two benches facing a common

                          shush, shush
                          shush, shush
                          shush, shush

             …

it equals itself
its remainder, that odd obstacle
isolit
                          that like that
                          except here

you will always be in stone
outlined in attention
                          who is to say
                          beckoning is any different
lambasting, the form
pages abutting

return
return

so to see yourself
slip away

             and hear