Perhaps

We lie in perhaps, hum-
hushed in dank corners
of fir lights and twinkled
haze, toenails crowned
with dandelion bands.

Brows beaten and drunk --
a given gesture gives way. Knees
on shins and knuckles tossed,
a fingered slip in twisted
touch. A still life

slain but breathing, broken
smarts, an absent thing.
Dishes spilling molded jam,
a carbon stench below
the shift. And when it must

it disappears, a column
crumbled to its toes. An empire
wracked with empty feet, its chairs
cracked with vacant falls. A dizzy dive
in liquid land, a stumbled leak

back into straight -- linear loops
to drop a grasp, a lone perhaps.