Engraver

Gift of The Iron Ink

Long halls to wander
           in the black sand cathedral,
an urn to imprison all 
             minotaurs of a man's past
let me relieve you of your coarse
               eyelashes suffocating in ash,
bring name to the ritual mileage
             you complete in death
a marathon of all wounds
               given before a final
bow before the Maker.

These yards of grave slabs,
             my magnum opus pregnant 
in all their letterings
              birthed most monstrous 
when I spelled out your name
               to raise molten anchors
from the volcanoes that inhaled 
                your name.

By my hands I made a library 
                 Alexandrian
of my fingertips shrivelling
                 in the veiled witness,
pour me a bath of tears to excavate
                meaning, name, message,
I give your dead the iron ink's
                  gift,
a half-life after death,
                     sans end.

I, engraver,
                feel the dusk witness
veiled purple as veins,
                  and hear all names
in the pulse twitching 
                 seismic amongst my
rippled skins grafted of memories,
            I witness my own name
fracturing across the fray,
            no engraver to mark
me and what I meant.