In a rusting coffee tin

yesterday
there were things to be said,
words to be poured like soothing balm, like hungry fire,
like unctuous oblations,
but I hear footsteps in the corridor ;

yesterday we stripped identities,
let me not be who I was,
let me not be who I became,
blindfold me, gag my god,
here take this, every original thought
I saved in a rusting coffee tin,
thoughts that never chanced the light,
accidents occur in the open air,
thoughts mutate, grow wings sometimes,
or fins, learn to swim through opaque slime,
so I left them in their raw nakedness
smeared with the blood of their birth,
there are words to be forgotten like impotent rage, like mute protests
like bent-knee euphemisms,
but I feel the hot breath on my neck;

yesterday we wondered what matters,
the sea is not judgemental
but it provides no direction,
the sky is temperamental,
a shifting constant still not revealing
the space above it,
the husk of mirage over seeds of truth
peels a little in the passion of broken fingers,
astringent voices coat the air between stars
for a brief moment,
fellow passengers on a train that cannot leave its rails,
the shells we build crack and crumble
not under marble pestles
but from within as we kick to unbind arms and legs,
there are words to be saved like secret talismans, like ancient prophecies,
like virgin tomorrows,
but I feel the steel of the twisting knife;

yesterday we were silent,
there were things to be said.