Early to wake, you made like the genius, 

declaimed wildly, leapt between calculations, lusted over factories 

and drew wild designs with an interminable finger 

in sand spilled from an hourglass. Added quicker, distilled it faster - not an hour had passed 

before you swore it was ready. The apothecary gods watched from their perches on the shelves above. 


Eagerly, you let the smoke dissipate. 

What did you find? 

Matter irreducible, an unworkable core. 

You had come to an end of yourself, 

and still the blackened brain of paper on the floor 

belched out only
                              ---- silence.

When the air becomes as crisp
as the sandpaper rub of a whetstone
on the bluntness of a burdened mind
my heart throbs with the dull ache
of missing you.
 
I long to stitch you together
from the memories which dance
like cinders beneath the starlight,
I long to hear your voice amid the smoke,
my precious wolfbane.
 
But your singed paper kisses
have morphed into grey hairs
and the air no longer shimmers
at your touch.