She looked at me with a face that shone from sleep from the peace of sleep, that calmed her skin and all beneath it yet the wakeful of her eyes spoke to me of problems solved or half solved and that torment, and that peace and I could tell by the frame of her brow and her jaw that though she smiled, she did not wish to smile at me And her beauty hit me like the force of a butterfly that awakens you in a long-forgotten dream In that moment erupting into a hundred different memories smooth, and perfect, like the curve of her cheekbones a beauty unlike the masturbatory whores or the gilded queens in green towers or the sour words that from sweet lips spring unlike the doe-eyed ones who smile so sweet and talk about their dears the ones they left across the sea who they might not love but write to every week though his mother keeps protesting and- she turns to me and asks “How do you wish to be remembered?” And the perfect ratio of space above her eye is tempting me I want to tell her that a kiss is all I need, to taste my taste on her sweet lips and leave the thought of me between them to think the thought would be anything but fleeting But in her smile I am torn between her perfect lips and perfect teeth The way my mind is racing, I could almost hear her finger bones begin to creak I can hear her heart pounding with impatience The pace quickens so as to quicken me I think of vultures plucking out the eyes of all the dead that litter all the streets who have no need for skin to touch their hands who have no hearts that still have need to beat The color leaves my thoughts as they collapse in the span of exactly one eternity a concept I had never dared to dream- to dream! to dream of butterflies! She laughs, but does not want to laugh for me the clicking of her fingers stops its quickening and with my final breath I say: “There is no one so great as would deserve my memory” Her laughter breaks too shrill, her face it cracks like porcelain incorrectly baked but eternity it stays, and in flows silent peace I feel then as a sweetheart, drawn across the sea not for want of love, but want of body. the shores come like shadows, crawling to the curving of my eyes, behind the lids, itching up the sides and in the spray it is proud and noble Death who greets me Asking in an absent voice, “Who is she?”

^^^