A Purification Of Opium Poem by Cheryl Renaud

The clothing of my longing shuns the rare
beauty of my hands—
which is obsolescence

It does not shed austerity at
a turn of particular light
or on an assemblage of words

Its wave is rather on a page
with a darkening elusive to standard touch
It’s better to endure

shards glued to a single blank sheet
than to endure laundered faces who
keep returning at the

door of my consciousness.
I can attach a kite to my loose-leaf
reverberrational telos

In the hopes that a pure absorption of
that one thought will trek
back safely to haunt, not just my hands.

_______________________________
(16 April 2005)