Anaphora: Four Approximations

1.

This is the last time i heard music:
gray scarves for the painted
constellations. Eyes for trees, the
flower or god’s mouth? A jewel capped by time
like sunlight splitting a window.

Maybe death is a snowflake on yr tongue.

2.

This is the last body: that a temple returns
to dust. An ornament
of the unseen. Something
for silence to lean on.
With memory, that love might stay

or maybe i plane my spine
from fantasy
without asking what is
that luminous thing found
between breaths.

3.

This is the last breath: god is likely
an oriole lapping water from the
lakeshore

or maybe a woman leaning on the
doorframe, a convolution of sorrow.
An effulgent light like a bridge
connecting two worlds.

4.

This is the last question: they say the
last wolf in a pack is the leader. And
where wind begins?

Maybe it is a mountain trail
soaked in rain or maybe it is
invisible fortunes
begotten in yr home. Tell them

i was a city of smoke.