4

 
A leaf among leaves, a face among masks.
Indistinguishable, undistinguished, almost
extinct.  Careless in dress, engrossed
in general indifference... what, he asks,

 
is left for me to live for?  After
she absconded (at the carnival)?  Merging
with the masquerade (beyond margin
of dead forest, amid bitter laughter)?

 
Leaving him among leaves, a judgement
by distance, he thinks, a measure
of all that lingers: febrile fissure,
pustulant fosse.  Indictment (by silence).