He died on the asphalt, the man with the tie. He was gone before the ambulance arrived. We looked at the shirt that clung to his chest, damp with what ebbed from him, and it betrayed no subtle exhalation, no gasping hope. We saw but could not stand to see the crater [...]
i leave the revelers
with their mouths of porous light
in the distance
their songs
ascending on smoke
and ash
until there is nothing left
save the memory of warmth
a spot of white
against the sea,
i continue
unaccompanied
down the shoreline
further
where the waves strain and gasp for
another handful of
sand and here the current
runs a little swifter just beneath
the surface
your shadow
pinned by knives and
silver leaves,
i remember [...]