Shipwrecked

He wakes from a dream flickering in silken darkness

silence drifting through a broken window

sill covered with the kiss of her fingertips.

She was here once, now gone

but out there somewhere

like the sword of the conqueror

carrying a chain of roses.

The ancients wear night dressed in deepest blue

she carves black trees into the barren sky

beneath the wind across an ocean drowning in her dark grace.

Shipwrecked.

Land jutting into the face of the sea

cold as bitter tears

the taste of salt on his lips.