the writing machine

the babies are in their beds
the dog is snoring
you do not forgive me
and are sleeping, a rigid knife
in the bed and the shiphouse
is moored to the front trees
you are gone, into sleep
today you have been a dying woman
you have given the beauty and mercy of your lies
to strangers and so given me this unforgiving truth
before sleep, the house I allow myself to think
we share, sleep is lonesome as a storm,
and the dreaming face you wear is not for me
is an imagined cancer for yourself
is imagined crimes in an imagined city
I will go and sleep beside the
blade of your silence, and chase you,
a keystone doctor herky-jerky with apologies,
my silent mouth spitting black and white locomotives
and mimed apologies, cards between scenes
in a script noone can read