Requiem for the Dervish

Beneath that wide skirt

a sky-bright serpent whirls

for you, unfastens the cirrus

to weep down your pointed foot

and work a beaten treadle, long

enough for you to slip away

like mist over glass, tithing up

the last frail tissue of memory, 

pulled tight to harvest your

crumbling graces as they fall,

one hush limb at a time.

ArLiJo, August 2022, Issue 163