Invading forces burn their boats at landfall. That is how you know they plan to stay. In novels things happens slow and for a reason. Grim exposure splits the lark but finds no seed, no song. That is how you know it isn't you awake in hallways with silhouettes of sister, graceless candies, rust of ill -fortune, -timing. Something like the mind divides the motes of syllable from soot, breath from the breathless, Xs out the dew.

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This is a section from a novel-in-progress in which each chapter is a poem. It is born of meditations on various nineteenth century works. Sensitive readers should be forewarned.