The Elephant's Nostalgia

This is the door.

Our curved bodies grew behind

            these spiral walls.

Crescent mouths of living time

            her stitches keep their words.

They've closed in sky.

Bands of signatures float in

            oblong circles on her

                        bare arms.

Liars glow in the dark.

I never lit a match

            until

our house began to smell

            of kindling

dust and

            an abundance of leftovers.

The ashes of our floral sea.

She was lost in autumn and still

recalls the sensation of being found.

Decades later

            a circus in sepia

blankness on the underside           

            of a mirror.

Visitors to the lunar

            caravan park must wait

here.

It's just that they were staring at her.

Escape involves fate and a tiger;

            a tightrope is

the elephant's nostalgia.

Past aztec statues

open doors and too many stairs.

The end of

            the end was

the best place to begin.