Eight-hundred slender fingers
on a bound hand
gently kiss the contours
of the plane
Usher of the waste,
the hand herds the lost:
wandering, trapped
in crevasses and pockets
and the border at the sheer cliff’s foot
The angle slides, glides,
gathers the scattered motes
from flat corners
Ascendant!
then disgraced:
to the oubliette condemned
to wile in shadows
until, at last,
dust to dust returns
sweeper
