Skylark, meadowlark, lark of earth and sky, lark of sand and sea, lark that traverse a path unknown; from the depths of the ocean ensconced in the warm embrace of a giant tube worm camouflaged not in the skin of another but estranged and always alive like an octopus drawn by the treacherous anglerfish's light to the possibility of self-betrayal; soaring alone through the vast desolate peaks rakish snow-caps concealing the dead who believed in triumph to the last the thin air bringing clarity and shortness of breath; my lover dwelled everywhere and nowhere and I lost her there but in my lungs live memories expanding and deflating and always maintaining homeostasis; I saw a black cloud of crows and I remembered the swagger the stiff-hipped sway she wore in the back alley outside Lucky's bumming a light.