The night death was let into the world
we were playing faro with no aces,
the silver had run out of all the mirrors,
the second hands of the clocks had been removed.
Nothing I could drink
filled the glass fast enough, emptied my heart
with the absence of every tick.
The night death was let into the world
you had your ear to the radio in the root cellar,
transcribing the tickets of every suitcase
in the ghost stations still left unclaimed.
The last of the red-hot love-suicides
was leaning over my shoulder, murmuring
numbers that never added up.