Pavane After Rilke & Whiskey

Close to the cost of knowing lies the sin 

of being known. So what's the word for a flame 

that licks its lips on a winded night? Or the noun 

 

that carries the loose string on an electric guitar? 

And what is poison in the context of August meadows,

of soil being fracked, of water swimming like cancer 

 

when it sleeps? A death already in us, grinding 

her teeth. The poems abandoned, the words lost, 

the hurt feelings of limited time become frost. 

 

To live with both beauty and terror is our 

troth. I write a poem which teaches dogwoods 

to dance but find no words to bear the weight

 

of what's looming. And what've we loomed 

in the name of convenience remains unverbed,

only its increments bricked into our spines.