what if

foreign sweetness dripping off a spoon

into undeciphered sighs, not knowing who you are,

like dusk, like salt, petals falling on an unread book,

the asking hours shoved against a soundless wall,

a map of buried syllables that belong to no one else,

crowded shadows wedged beneath, and losing stars

to thought, the paper-smoothness of this night

enclosed within the curl of fingers in the crush

of all these stillborn words

becoming-unarmed