Vamps

Autumn Mouth

(For Heather)

0501.2025

(for the night we danced ourselves dizzy Lizzie)

Do you remember the autumn night

our ghosts spun in breathless circles—

not earthbound,

but blooming?

You were Mina-bound,

skin like ivory silk,

a flower pressed

between the breath

of one century and the next.

Translucent. Laughing.

Your mouth full of red wine

and death.

You tipped back your throat

like an offering,

and the moon pulled us

into a ballroom of frost

and forgetting.

We danced

because we already died.

We died

because we already danced.

White,

and lost in the beauty

of winter’s death—

that slow elegy

we knew was coming

to turn the petals into bone.

Oh,

sweet vampire—

we were twice bitten.

We were willing.

And we never wanted

to come back the same.

m.c.f.