"..Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all"*
It begins, as things occasionally begin
I. You are pursuing a black haired woman
II. She is last seen emerging from the rumbling underground sometime after midnight. So you run down fist clenched avenues, stormtrooping sleepless doorways and dragging the empty reservoirs of sunken window wells
III. You chase through ill lit alleyways under wind chimed fire escapes. You run until you are lost. Until she is lost. Until all is lost. The endless hammering of the throng snaps the bones of your will.
It begins to end, as things rarely begin to end
IV. With a glimpse of a black haired woman through a distorted rivulet of a steam painted window.
V. With recognizing twin crescents of scapulae cleaved by undone strands of a raven.
VI. On a wooden crate with an old man reading secret society poetry winnowed from uncommon tongues. The weep of uhms and uhs rinse bar glass as candelabra flames snuff. Applause is the slap of trained beluga tails performing in aquaria.
VII. With you asking her to dance. Your words fall as meat scraps in a slaughterhouse library.
VIII. In the cursive blackness of her balsamic eyes. As torpid as the scattered embers of an abandoned beach fire
IX. She is last seen as the stutter of 8mm film through a swinging kitchen door
It occurs to you that this is a dream and you wake lonelier than you thought humanly possible.
*title quoted from Emily Dickinson
