we lose
nothing at all
save for the illusion...

and a universe
politely dies

starved as tragedies
that pass
by market windows
their pockets full
only in the night

like
stars with grace to die
in the second
the telescope takes
to wink
its eye

and still

crumbled
like a fledgling
erased in the collapse
of its salt cake
nest

the grains and dust
it carries
by its back

the remnant
the souvenir

the fragile and the private
the internal house of cards
we build of our assumptions
and our hopes

abrased by sidewalks
on the tender knees of hearts
as if the illusion was balance
and gravity
the gravity
of truth