through streets of marigold, where orphaned echoes sweep lost steps of centuries, I hear Death wander and I hear her weep the certainty she carries, the infant suns she reaps, I hear her reach a child's hand, the child lost in night's confetti, I hear Death ask her for the names of stars, and she, her silks untangling, sighing names that cannot call to her, names like rain within her heart, then toward the child's ear Death leans to gift a secret, and the child, in turn, proffers a kiss on her dianthus cheek, until her weeping breaks into a breeze of rose, and the child, a marigold martyred between her fingers, is gazing out toward the moon, full, floating, free, she knows now the two worlds were never two, that the names she calls are calling for her too—