I pillaged iambic provinces to find
a phrase like a mythic hero awaiting birth:
no meaning, no suggestions to unearth,
but stronger than all my metaphors combined;
a canvas to whose bare surface I could bind
the content of the pause before a breath,
convey it with the incoherent warmth
that half-forgotten dreams can leave behind.
Dismantled language haunts me, and my face
is blank with the hope of empty syllables,
of sentences exhausted by disgrace.
I pray that in these idle codicils
a talisman of constant presence fills
the vacancy of all that I erase.