Hot and late, I had stumbled through
the glass doorway and seen
his face flash beyond the window
the eyes as thin and as weightless
as shadow, carrying nothing.
Stillness moved in and inhabited me, vibrating
like a tuning fork held
against the film of my blood.
The things I had to live for, the gentle
friends drunk with laughter, the work
I do almost without realizing
the limbs light, the mouth quick,
ready as if lowered in prayer. All fell
away. Perhaps there is a tenderness
in how the house opens, how any wind
can enter, the door cut
through the sternum and swinging.
But there is also a terror.

Arriving home hours later, I found you
amidst that same desperate cloth of my bedroom,
night leaning in
tired, I laid beside you and pretending
that you might forgive
the question, began to cry.
The new smoke lifted to my lips,
began to cry. I knew then
that I had traveled too far into nothing.
Like the only animal alive in a forest,
burrowing through the loose soil or breaking
the ballast boughs,
letting go of the sound of its voice, letting
go of being understood. I had gone
from hope and was unable to return.

Once on a night like this one, a needle
of wind in the dry grass, I saw his eyes
near and filled with my face. The bed
we shared was lit, was fire and static, and his eyes
carried mine. Practicing a sort of loss,
we closed the breath
between our mouths with air given
from his lungs into mine, and I felt
for a moment, how my heart
threaded the blood through his body.

Prey, afraid for its life, will drop
in an instant all the truth about its self in order to survive.
I have released
what was true about the world between he and I,
unfettering from the past
that life which was real only to the darkness
and now the sky, umbral
beyond the tawny town
sagging bilious with stars
lofted, and probably dead
but seeming, almost, young
is lost to me forever.

10/24/2005

Posted on 10/25/2005
Copyright © 2024 Marina Dawn