Lightyears at Sea

His whispered goodbyes caught fire
in the whites of her eyes as wild dogs
and empty oceans devoured him.
Standing still for years, she with
a waiting heart and waiting fingers
gave birth to ghosts with feathers.
Haunting in his sleep, swinging like
sharp jewelry and pendulums
carving cryptic messages upon his floor-

'You, with your tattooed baptism skin
and slithering tongue of sweet poison
left her aching ashes to mix with gunpowder.'