I.
At the battlement’s frayed hem,
a lone sentinel of plume and hush
unstitches the evening with a fingertip.
His book is not read—
it is inhaled,
a lungful of centuries
compressed into vellum.
II.
Wings: two pale eclipses
nailed to the air by memory.
Each feather a ledger
where gravity confesses its crimes.
They do not stir;
they rehearse stillness
until stillness forgets its own name.
III.
The tower beneath him
is a fossil of ambition
licked clean by altitude.
Its stones hum lullabies
to the clouds that cradle them—
a cradle that never rocks,
only deepens.
IV.
His hair is the color of ash
after the last prophet
burned his own tongue.
Eyes: twin wells
where drowned constellations
still give off light.
He reads the negative space
between letters—
there, the true scripture
bleeds.
V.
Far below, a river
learns to spell its own evaporation.
Its vapor climbs like incense
to an altar that has forgotten fire.
The angel tastes it—
salt of a world
still learning how to end.
VI.
Turn the page:
a century folds like a wing
tucked against the body of night.
The sound is not paper—
it is the hinge of a gate
no one was meant to open
twice.
VII.
He is the pause
between the question and the answer
that never arrives.
His shadow is a book
closed on the ground,
its spine cracked
by the weight of what it refuses to say.
VIII.
No name.
Only the hush
where thunder goes to die
and be reborn as footnote.
Stand here long enough
and your pulse learns to read
in a language
older than blood.
At the battlement’s frayed hem,
a lone sentinel of plume and hush
unstitches the evening with a fingertip.
His book is not read—
it is inhaled,
a lungful of centuries
compressed into vellum.
II.
Wings: two pale eclipses
nailed to the air by memory.
Each feather a ledger
where gravity confesses its crimes.
They do not stir;
they rehearse stillness
until stillness forgets its own name.
III.
The tower beneath him
is a fossil of ambition
licked clean by altitude.
Its stones hum lullabies
to the clouds that cradle them—
a cradle that never rocks,
only deepens.
IV.
His hair is the color of ash
after the last prophet
burned his own tongue.
Eyes: twin wells
where drowned constellations
still give off light.
He reads the negative space
between letters—
there, the true scripture
bleeds.
V.
Far below, a river
learns to spell its own evaporation.
Its vapor climbs like incense
to an altar that has forgotten fire.
The angel tastes it—
salt of a world
still learning how to end.
VI.
Turn the page:
a century folds like a wing
tucked against the body of night.
The sound is not paper—
it is the hinge of a gate
no one was meant to open
twice.
VII.
He is the pause
between the question and the answer
that never arrives.
His shadow is a book
closed on the ground,
its spine cracked
by the weight of what it refuses to say.
VIII.
No name.
Only the hush
where thunder goes to die
and be reborn as footnote.
Stand here long enough
and your pulse learns to read
in a language
older than blood.
