Once when Sonya visited I heard death outside.
In a pocked road
each puddle holds a plateful of sky
brittle with a waver of brilliance,
slippery like shadows.
She sits under the bough of my shoulder
in the shade of my crown,
clutches my thin arm,
lays her warm face against it.
The quickly-brushed-hair in this weeping willow tapestry
escapes all of its ponytail and wanders.
Before the morning rolls
out of bed and finds its clothes
somewhere;
before all this
I could hear him, out there, could hear him whistling.
Masquerading as a pedestrian, or a shadow on the curtains.
My certainty becoming quieter as he wanders toward
the station.
I heard him receding,
glockenspeiling with his umbrella on the fenceposts.
But Sonya smells like peaches,
her lips are painted with a wax crayon,
and in the morning light
dull pink sips a glass of orange.
There is dust on her biscuit lips,
in sachets of whispers,
and expected rain from the Timpani in the distance.