I know the alphabet of loss is like a man
who sees a woodblock print
each time he looks at a tree
whose yardstick measures all the span
between his gaze and its reality
his books are filled with what he holds
between his gaze and what its leaf forsakes
beside a shrine where waters lapse to pray
his ego may not vacate the years enough
the distance that only the foreswear hears
can I detain the ruins a little with my life
that toad whose aftervintage pages vanish
laden with update escapes my anon descends
flopsteps where I stand sneezing into a crown
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