dark your heart at rest on the mantel, loosing time with your grandfather's clock. crouched over your ill-lit desk, hunched over your minuscule work, the minutiae of gestures you make as you fix the small broken things that you fix. in silence here you groom the grief, burnishing old emotions and letting them rise like reflections in the curve of old brass. with oiled talons you separate each strand and make them gleam with your mourning. whatever cannot be gained on this perch was never worth having, an affirmation with each self-loving stroke.