As True As Troilus

I hold such bated breath

My hand a brimming trove

I hold such spinning wheel

That my years gape wide

And I say yes, as true as troilus

The moon having all to do with it, we wait and speak of nothing. I stare at your wealth as a

Moth would at a light

Our lies squeak like bus breaks on a boring hill

As false as cressida you take my hand

I look into your eyes as into a foreign vowel, gathering my last words around me like

Photographs in a flood

I hold such bated breath

My hand a brimming trove

I hold such spinning wheel

That my years gape wide

I could take this to you later

But I take this to you now

I must act quickly, you see

Before my mind invents a cold

Their love ran a faultless course, their eyes trained on the same source, their hearts pregnant

Like salmon with millions of tiny hopes

Troilus: Girl-shy but brash-hearted, on the cusp of full living

Cressida: Bright-eyed but wary, bouncing on caution's weakest knee

And when she left, gutting the house of its contents as she went, a cold emptiness replaced the

Full feeling, leaving him as hollow-bloated as the deflating bulb of the stomach that

Remembers the child, love nursing us all into need.

Banking on the deep well of their love to bring up water, he waited nine days for her return

His patience a novena of noble longing

And I say yes, as true as troilus

In privacy of heart

I shuffle vagary

And trick and the millions

Suck at my bowels like mice

Like a boy troilus begged for her return, rumors of her dissension like the cruel whisper of

The winter wind hissing through the porch teeth. Nine days of wondering how the clock could

Summon up enough vim to muscle through the minutes. And on the tenth day something died

Swelling like a tumor on the april path, ten days of sitting still, only to hear his heart break

Those ten times over

On the tenth day something died

Swelling like a tumor the april path

Ten days of sitting still

My body buckling like the belly of an accordion

And I stay true, as true as troilus, and as I wait for you my life grows cold in waiting

Your truth sedated in the sleep-hub and your silence at the helm of our wreckage, I sit alone in my

Confusion, dwarfed in not knowing why, my heart like a brass instrument that is spittle-heavy wheezing out.

In the small font of a footnote, I beg for the tight screw, the green light, the hungry flutter of

White hands at the blackening keys, to hammer out my own truth, weave a sharp confession

My knuckles chiming over the launch pad like church bells.

That to be pianist

And hunger at the keys

In dreams airlifted out

From where I toss alone in scrimmage

In dreams airlifted out, in dreams airlifted out

In dreams airlifted out from where I toss alone in scrimmage

I catalogue the moments of our beginnings

Remembering how my body shifted like an easy tide

As you pinned me to you

In these days of endless complaint

I raise my hand to cover my eye

As you did to yours, only to second

An open eye for yours, a heart for yours

A promise for yours, only to hold

In jest, in dreams, in supplications

In jest