Let it Lean In

The clock has lost its mercy on the wall,
The sky turns bruised, an iron, bruised-plum gray.
We knew the dusk would gather, once for all,
To strip the golden hours of the day.
It comes for us: the quiet, closing cold,
The thief that parts the marrow from the bone,
The final bell that leaves no sorrow told,
And makes a phantom of the flesh and stone.

So lay your heavy skull against my chest;
Let ruin find us braided in the dark.
If all our breath must falter in the west,
We’ll burn together down to ash and spark.
Let thunder shake the floor and snap the stem—
I hold you close, and I am laughing at them.