You said you'd give me the moon
on a piece of toast
or at least the sweet-hot peel
of her cinnamon skin.

You said you'd raise from the grave
my heart, the ghost
to fill with black-burnt warmth
that could begin

a beat to bring horned dancers from the trees,
life to lift me lurching from my knees;
a revenant in red
that's what you said

that night in the glimmering swell
before the Fall
but it was Carnivale.



~September 2014