Significance

You killed the author twelve years before;

choked with his own lines,

the first strings, at the start of the book.

Now, somewhere in the turn of a page

I make you out: strung-up flaccid

in those same twists.

Your lungs would have made more

sense: old tubers under the ribs;

the rustle of language:

black in the nook of a tissue –

a referent far too clear. 

Instead, out from your elegant knots 

where the others hang,

a white laundry van

broke your body

in Paris congestion,

and forced you back 

to your own conclusion.