Truth

(Silvia, Hanging Bank, Sunday the 17th of May, 2020) 

When we smashed the inkwell of truth

We mapped-out the vast realms of 

The Kingdom of Things That Will Never Be

Here Be Dragons  
Retreat
Save some dignity.

We hid the map in Plato’s cave

Eros granted you parrhesia,

Pinned my tongue firm to the wall.

His hungry dogs stalked

the shallows

Grew weary of their own bark

Too tame

To go

for the kill

Gentle beast – cried Psyche

If I caught up with you at the end of time

On a dustbowl red Earth – when we have long forgotten

How to breathe

If caught you 

and shone candlelight into your pale eyes

Would you lie still?

In the aftermath of truth,

I hang loose, inert

A strip of silver nitrate

Full-up on light

Sobriety seems as irreversible as

Blots of dark ink on the old pine

Of a child’s bedroom chest

Time’s cycles

launder on repeat

Weaken the dye.

Every poem

Not written

Is another

lie.