Conservative Prayer

Where movement is reflex
and time unconcerned,
there are no ruins.

Then turn over the glass,
let the sand run into space:
a trickle, like water through

dry fingers pressed as lips
on a faint kiss. Steady, like strings,
let ring an idle chord:

A pillow to bear the soothed head
toward no waking;
dawn's sanguine horror to shake

no dust from the lash.
If love lasts for a moment,
be as ice on my cheek;

burn in a steadfast redness,
and make it ache
like a kick, or a slash.


early 90s