tonight ends this...this
most recent this.
exhale the smoke of the scar, hard blink
shut the days and look out
across the white filling in
with pre-color, truth, tomorrow
and now.

the lungs bite down around
the cherry-purple veins in the sunset and the river
grey wrinkles in the clouds, all folding
down into dust in the rising washing
off of this through my breathing.

everything is ready to move, the lights
from that life begin to diminish like a map
that no longer leads any roads left to be remembered, and
with that last look back, let it all collapse
this new now needs nourishment.

because you know what this is, you knew it was coming, you
have known this somewhere all along, you are just waking up
from the forgetting of this, we always forget that
it will wait to start again until
this completely ends, and that is
what this is, the end of what
has been, and the start
of what will soon be.