the down-
side of innocence
all its moments belong to time,
a fiction tefloned against 'endure',
yet staple to heart and mind

time whose thorns
come stealthed in the fine-print of marginalia,

time whose elan faulters,
craters to plod-derrivatives of light speed,
whose breathless awes
collapse into sighs and weariness

who could have guessed,
believed the mist-born loss

"the moon smiles,
then laughs, then yawns" -
innocence has no such carousel,
only flesh to engage the more,
dreams and wounds to farm, and sand,
alas, disguised as many things beneathing each step

in to be's distances
need and wont crowd a trellised-mirror,
gate-gauntlet creatured
with that of the grape-raisin-wine of things rose,
things serpent

we enter in

inocence tarries without,
becomes a forlorn child, look-
ing back when we sense time
whispering us through
from marrow to eyes
glazed from the gathering vault
of hourglass