i.

This key to incandescence
is prone to
melting
at the inconvenient midnights.

Every swath of cotton that
swallows blanketed
secrets
could be the next to fly.

I can’t see which way
is the one to Kelowna
when the nearest street signs
are covered in twilit moss and
the landmark here is a memory.

ii.

It’s not the wilting
watercress
in the overflowing
river
that will house a
sliver
of what we thought last month.

Peculiar sabres line the walkways here,
point down,
hilt up,
and edges keen as silk.
What is rust when spin is imminent?

iii.

These nights of fondling
ice
can’t be more
emphatic
without putting Monaco to rest.

A gyroscope of sentiment,
or a hope in a blender,
would be the appropriate metaphor here --