| It's years since I slept and crawled
across the edges of my silence
to talk to you. One must speak
to feel alive. I am trying. Trying
to find what words remain past
day's mute borders. It's time to know
if I remember the soft way we sang
each other's name, if I can still see
your moonshadow pull the tides
to dance and feel your hand holding
mine, gripped until the bad things
drown. I should have paid attention
as you lifted brittle clamshells to save
from crumbling in the heat, to polish
a second life onto something already
dead. I need to use your healing
hands, the way they cooled and fixed,
always pointed toward morning.
I want to press them to the night,
unwrinkle scars that settle themselves
in loneliness. Press, to seal the cracked
darkness so it no longer leaks to day.
I want to hold the shell of you
in those hands, walk you on the beach
and rub. I know we could be young
again and cast off worlds gone tight
like last year's coats. Unzip our skin,
naked and reborn. I will go slow. Night
is delicate now, too fragile to touch
with anything but a shy kiss. I dare not
disturb your hair that spreads once
more across my shoulder as I sleep.
It smells of salt. When I breathe I see
your wings and hiding places that
only fit two lovers and their secrets.
I etch you in sand, enshrine you
on a shore where no one else has
ever been. Each night I let you fly.
Bank toward me in moonlight
like a gull. Sing your night song.
|
