L’appel du Vide

crime scene: your hand is parallel
to mine, 90° bridge that ends
by falling in          until you become
god. we can            stumble
into recadency,       even though your shadow

is tired of fucking
shadows, eyelids//fists
gritted. close tight enough & you will
hallucinate me into the spots
of your eyes. turn down

the brightness of your skin:
I can see as your stomach drops
& the rest of you
tries to keep up.

3:17 a.m.

two years & you are
my favorite night
of sad – only beautiful
in motion, a cupid’s bow
ridged like mountains. the universe
is embedded in your skin

& it wants out, like teeth
on tongue, scraping its way
out of the opening. if you
pretend these reflections
matter, I can get stuck
in your headlights or lost

in sheets shaped like you.
I can feel the pinpricks
of my scalp peeling
off, speckling the sky
with remnants of my skull
that I no longer need,

I miss the mirage
of you traipsing the streets
I cannot navigate without
you; these are hallways
& stairwells I did not know
before you.

the men that god forgot

space does not care
about you: the only mercury
cascading through your blood-

stream is from splintered
thermometers your mother
crushed into your palms,

folded over. the only mercury
is dangling over your head
in curlicues, whispering to phosphenes

in welded eyelids. the moon
did not watch you
catch the wrong wave-

length, so he is still some degree
of blue. he knows me
in the mirror has got vertigo

from inhalation,
but I will stabilize when
I find you empty

in the world’s basin.

Ciera Lamoureux is a poet who lives in Florida.