With ink I feathered you, at your fingertips sketched

storm-static and the dust of masks, set crooked all

the haloes of a holy fool to crown you double-tongued

and quicksilver: this hand of faces you dealt yourself

in pasteboard riddles and commedia deadpan, that now

I shuffle like a cadenza to hand back as slant and true

as any con: pick a card, my lovely assistant, any card.

We two only, we know: they are marked all with your name.