INCANTATION FOR EXQUISITE REGRETS

There's something pure in their habit
of sinning,
something soft and incorruptable
in their gentle yielding.

"There's something about you,"
she said,
"like your aura doesn't absorb anything negative."
the reply --
"Because I can spot it from a room away, and let it roll over me
like water."
and besides,
tragedy
breeds beauty.

Murmurs and murmurs
of fresher days
pulse like bass in a dimly lit club
shaking up the vertebrae
and heart
invoking flashes of insight
like sputtering candles
in a drafty tomb.