Through a haze of pain
and battered senses
you come bearing gifts
of smiles
that never reach your eyes
or my soul
and stuttered phrases
of shared reference
as if to conjure ghosts to dance
a choreography of forgiveness.
Time weaves patterns
jagged and flawed
distorted with perplexity, that,
dizzying and restless,
tosses resolution by the side of the soul
to die.