*This breathtaking mural is by Misha Hunter, and was photographed by the wonderful Resa McConaghy

The Stone Beholder

I am
The matting season
of airborne sakura
and the scalding asphalt;
gift me your opals
and I will nest them
inside the linear odyssey
of history’s grayscale.
I am
An artist’s commemoration
Of mortal stars,
The whispering sand,
The fragment in the bonfire.
The doves you could not catch,
but just persuade
to fret for you,
a million different moments a day,
until the winterlands
corner you inside a bedroom,
until you are a mourner of lilac,
threading the adolescent, rebellious horizon
through the creases of your cambric shirts.
Whichever song you sing,
It will not wake me,
It will not wake the dead,
It will not bury your head for an eternal rest
Atop my stone breasts
Pulsing
Under ornament crossroads;
I cannot open my eyes
For the lonely man