Harder Ground
The nightshade grew out,
through cracks in stone,
blank spaces in heat.
Consumed the topsoil of
bitter minerals, of frozen
time-ticks on deadpan tones.
When they throw confetti
form us in finery, they
don’t move shame-faced
In floating work signs,
the efforts that took me
so long, too long in tearing.
It is not the star chamber
silence, that stretched out to
infinity’s edge in old halls,
But battered seething that
confuses a heart and
soul sadness, striking
time bone against dusk.
