The night of teeth is closing, a jaw that swallows whole,
the ships return beyond the pier, into the speechless shore.
Your body crashes downward, dragged by your soul’s wild flesh,
as God’s stone garden shatters, collapsing into ash.
I waited in the windows, their shutters open wide,
I tore whole lands asunder, from earth and from my side.
I stood with you in silence, when from your cheek you tore
the skin down to the jawbone, God’s image ripped and raw.
And I smiled inside your fire,
loved you like the lone survivor,
one who’s lost all else before,
yet loves even more.
You scratched my wounds wide open, and dragged the Moon to rest,
a trinket on your bosom, a toy upon your chest.
You turned into God’s coroner, dissecting all I hold,
my soul laid out in silence, its secrets growing cold.
And as the midnight severed, and split our bond in two,
you tied the trembling vessels, the lifeblood flowing through.
The gardens died within me, their roots consumed by rust,
the evergreen surrendered and smoldered into dust.
And so, the night of teeth has closed, a silence pounding hollow,
within my chest an ageless drum, too wordless still to follow.
If I am led to vanish now, I go without your flame,
yet carry burning images, forever marked with pain.
I grew into your sharpened nails, our cellar soul enfolding,
became in you what you in me, a shadowed self-beholding.
And as I fall I’ll visit you once more before we part,
to place you in the North Star’s hands, its everlasting heart.
The Northern Star was watching, a beacon by the side,
it marked the lane of dying with its cold and sleepless light.
It came to me at vigil, in whispers sharp and frail:
“What once was bound together shall never be unveiled.”
It promised when I landed the gardens will arise,
for rivers always find each other where their delta lies.
The orphans at the table embrace through tears and song,
and those once lost to death return, where they do belong.
Light a candle in the cathedral green,
for the gargoyle I’ve transformed within—
matter only, bloodless cast,
quia nomen habes quod vivas –
et mortuus est.