Drink Me

Drink soft poison
he tells me, flexing the muscles of his mind
     just this once
He wants me to beat my wings too
Spiral in butterfly stupidity around one another
In truth, flame-kindled moths numb to the fire

And when it’s dark and knowing better he still slips out
riding black on black through black to battered stillness
he leaves me there like incorruptible ruins
whose bricks he covets
     but cannot steal
And what would he do with them anyway?

He holds out the promise of bliss
somehow missing
that its roots strangle contentment.
What grows
on the rocks?
Oh, soft poison.  Just this much water, no more.