Mercy

Pretend not to love.Pretend air sustains nothing.Pretend because it is easy.

Easy to be among elms at night.To walk among elms at night        theirshadows fortresses bending to labyrinth.

There your breath as miststrangely sudden        strangely waterlogged.Breath as a bouquet you carry

to the one you love but pretend not to.Pretend because you are weak        beenweakened by a past oddly free.

By a past where your glow        that glowrendered others blind        love luminous.Those blinded mocked in dark glasses.

Mocked without hesitation at your lackof hesitation.    This is whom I love.    This one.This love is mine even if it isn't.    Hear me.

You let them drag you through town.Clothes ripped by rocks.Who knew the blind were vicious?

So bruised you have remained.Wounds like storms on Jupiterforever hostile. But this hostility

is inside that which you deny.Sky of latticed lightning        windwild without wonder        pretending.