Spent pleasures, an empty station,

cold uncertain new year's morning

crawling under my virgin skin,

time's driven deadened nails

pulling the pregnant pauses in;

and I'm watching the seconds rise and fall,

this unchartered hour,

from where time comes and goes

like someone else's train.

 

 

Candles at dawn,

the night has stolen all that we were,

me with my friends,

you, your secrets,

lost in the immolation

of a year now gone;

I drank with a desperate, fearful edge

then slept with my eyes wide open.

Sally, from what troubled embers

do you return?

 

 

This absence of feeling,

this whiplash through gritted teeth

and slow release of sweet oblivion,

mirrored in her measured approach,

although light years apart

what is left unsaid

resonates through empty spaces,

and what remains unknown

spreads like a stain through common waters

and drifts into focus

half a lifetime on.