Left a chalk self-portrait on her mattress   Then cleansed my skin in the rain   The streetlamps and lobbies just listen   Must be the moonlight that beckons again and again      Calendar countdowns and train station shifts   White sheets lay under the true candidate   Confession in murmurs and indisposed sighs   Truth’s in the once-blue, now graying eyes      Bindings and bookmarks soiled in the prints   Of covetous fingers dipped in black ink   The authors are harlots citing their shame   As the reason for tossing their works in the flames      A guardian’s ghost framed in the pane   Under rustling of satin, intervention in vain   With the pretext of speakers and lavender lights   A selfish duet crescendos in time      Early April showers and mahogany hair curls   Draw crimson from under the skin   The band-aids and bracelets just masking   The sole thing that ever touched her within      In the darkest of backyards, on sanitized grass   The nurse lays aside her own ailing past   Reception in silence, culmination in gags   With awkward young smiles, this walk is our last