Poems

Vespertine

By Camille Rankine

Dear night: It was so warm
under you that I offered
but you refused

to endure. You won’t remember
me. (We danced. I was the one
in the dark. I was wearing 

this face.) In daylight, I’m an acre of empty
desert, anyway. A spent white flower. A pale
honey scent wilted away.

And I’m having this dream:
I am mourned by millions.
I died young and I was so, so pretty.

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