Midnights: La Jetee

Will the fires yes the
fires will consume us.

We will scatter our own
ashes, scatter them in a spiral

between lake and sky,
cadmium yellow sky.

The lovers, intertwined,
will speak of this

at lakeside, will say nothing
of this by water’s edge.

They will taste the salt
on each other’s lips

and discover the pain
of the salt light,

salt where the sculptor
once signaled with his hands

a little to the left,
a little to the right,

amid the tides.
Is it he or I

who would say,
Out of salt we are made?

Only a fool
like myself

would write of this
at midnight

among the fires
when all

should be left
in silence. 

--Michael Palmer