In small change, like coins tossed
when the riflemen play
the life lent us will be lost,
counted out and repaid.
Passion is a blade that ever
whets us as it hews:
what the nude body fails to sever
is slain by flesh subdued
when we lose our way, and dusk
ingathers our husk
with a black shout of solitude in flames;
to know that we are light, to view
the echoes of a fire anew:
lost Bahamas, forfeited domains.