Among the hideous shapes
   you are my favoured
For the wretched silence of your scoliotic spine
   flavoured with our crimson wine:
Blood diamonds
   screaming songs of sirens
   writhing on a desiccated island's edge
Boiled alive—
   can be distilled into the language of a pledge
I hereby promise to be yours
Foretell you will be mine

the shrill of deboning the wounds,
the daybreaks those scoliotic stems

cling to, the brine we chug in spring
to keep the tender parts green

now frosted in charcoal,
yeasted-over and gargling with ice.

but this is just winter
swelling

and the lights may have gone
burnt but the dimness gapes so beautifully

at night.