On meeting a kindred

Yes, I have signed myself over
in draughted out treaties,
ceremonious silence
like Hirohito on the Missouri

What cold I shivered in
and life I sent to all damnation
what poisons I ingested...
what unnecessary arsenals

what animals I had become
in my closed statutes
what intrusions in on
the best expense did I doubt?

What grey quarters did I
say nothing in for a long sentence
what laughter in the face
of salvation

what certain eye did destroy
what vessel overflowed
with panic and regret
on the birthday of my feared last day?

What tears and perplexities
I stirred in others
what explosion of rhyme
strode into scenes of finality?

what stranger's bed did I warm
what form did I fill out
what plane did I strike
mineral maintenance?

What insects did I allow in
what references undisclosed
what prism of colours
did she pass through

when I caught her warm wail?
What trouble was imagined?
What house of cards did I
rebuild everyday without fail?

until it happen
that all voices
meet, harvesting in a tea field
working in the dark of night

and that all dreams
being understood
no longer required
ratification and reparation

behind us is half a world
of dead, but we kept the cities
and inside our halls
we are free to return to our

vanquished ambitions and gardens
filled with radios and summer
and you lavish me with inventions

and you'd wait all day until
I spoke only in whisper
then we stood in familiar awe
in front of the doors of vaults.