Impromptu.

Borrowed

I can squint my ears; can you?
Listen hard to your insides and perhaps
you too can hear Babel.
Vowels and consonants duel
over the thin corpse of my ambition,
and already the eyes are mottled
and the head half eaten.

Maybe not dead yet, maybe two days gone
for beneath your gaze I fell too gentle into that good night.
No rage against the dying of the light,
just one sad yawn. Too long.

So call it a rapture,
call it my fault or yours but regardless
they were right--I see
a space to fill a lack, her body
hollow at the core, sitting
home alone with nothing whatsoever to chop;
she frightens me because she is familiar.