The silent walk to the prison stronghold was Terror.

My feet would make monsters
as they ran away. & your tongue
is a dancer slicked with oil. & happiness

turns out to be just another way
of thinking. The organ-grinders
& candy-stripers will meet beneath

the battlements. Their restraint
is legendary; no one will hear
them whispering. But in my ears

a hollow ringing. & my smartest suit
is crumpled like a blow-up doll
in the corner of some room,

somewhere. You continue your on-
looking, your pirate pirouetting, picking
out the gaps between my teeth.

The snow will fall. You will resist.
You are a leaf & I am on leave,
escorting the ox-cart for pocket change.

Eyelids quiver in the wind, pretending
they are unable to block what is seen.
In the end, you'll have to imagine

the missing pieces on your own;
I can't show them to you
(they're missing!). The streetlights

flicker once, then burn on.
There is no radar in the world
that will not see us blip, then die.