We close the subtle clarity of night
with days consumed by motes of dusty beams,
with visions of perception where our sight
subsumes the wrath of sunlight in our dreams.
The air exhaled from humid throats is not
the air we welcomed in with subtle hope;
while throats are dry, the words we breathe are hot,
constricted like a hangman’s dusty rope.
Come kiss my subtle mouth with grieving lips
of promises; I’ll pay you for the trick
of light that makes the word which simply slips
into the dusty air, congested, thick.
It’s love, the subtle whore of night and day
who laughs the most as she collects her pay.