cycle

I watch you move your fingertips

against the autumn air

twisting the long stems of your hand

like a bouquet

with a great golden leaf

blooming

bending gently to the ground

under the weight of its own glory

With a snap it crumbles

and you laughing toss

it into the careless air

slits of gold to fall across your feet

your fingers pulled back

against your palm

like a seed awaiting spring

hidden for winter cold

I picture the warmth

stretching it out

with my hand like the sun

leading your fingers to grow like roots

deeply coiled in my own

Gold on silver

soft and strong

and we will watch the spring bloom

without fear of winter

a deep tree with strong roots

dropping its great gold glory

for others to pick up

and grow into

Queenly

You wear his looks like a fur coat

fluffed up and white

to make you look bigger

all wrapped in the warmth

that separates you from the air and bite

of this concrete world.

The wealth just drips off you

from your rounded red lips

soft and subtle

a flash of pomegranate pearl on the tip of your tongue

and then it slips away

as quick as your scattered feet

in their soft silk slippers.

We stare at you with envy

and with distance

too afraid to come close to touch

as you float on

walking down the road

wrapped in rags and love

the story grows.

how strange these hands have become to me

these long fingers that smooth away into shadow

at your side

and I am watching them there

at your side

wrapped consecutively in the dark

of your soft coat sleeve

pulled down to conceal them with

the thoughtless gesture of one

who does not seem himself as others do

but only a story that he is telling

from me to you and no response

is possible but only this

that his hands will retreat from open mine

up the mouth of that cloth cave

the magicians rabbit within the hat again

But back they flicker with the sudden spark

that your train of thought throws

against these senseless rails

holding us back from the sidewalk

and i am constrained in my seat

watching the strangeness and the shadow meet

melting one into the other

until i am watching nothing

but the swinging shape of the dark against the ground

like swallows swooping in the twilight

and then they fall again

two still hands at your side

and i drop my eyes to stare at the sidewalk

looking sidelong at at your long fingers

you are telling me a story

of who you are and why

when and how and that you are fine

and i stand by your side

knowing you are lying

how strange your hands look

without mine

Courage Now.

Let me find the calluses on your fingers

the places where you and life have grappled

where the slender scar was disregarded

the battle pressed in again regardless

until weal by weal the victory grows.

I can count your triumphs in these small hard wounds

not left to heal but reentered in the fray

I find your strength in these called flaws

but what use to me an untested vessel

with siding still smooth and white

the shine of the smith sticks soft upon it

when against my hand your hand fits like a hilt

a protection well tried and proof against any attack

Standing beside you I draw strength through your skin

Let us then begin.

The new world awaits.

London.Once.

the sounds of this strange language

crowd my throat

creating their foreign echoes

that thrum down into my lungs

ricocheting into my stomach

and suddenly i feel sick

what it is about you

that steals me away?
In all the world

there is only one place

I remember

snowflake clear

with each edge defined

standing beside you

wherever we are, whenever we are

I see you standing on that stairway

with your arms around me while we sink

and the darkness flickers behind us

stretching its jaws wide

to take us both at once

and I don't mind, don't even feel the teeth

leaning against you

with your warmth wrapping me up.

Keep me safe once more.

I am on my way down again

with nothing but the heat of your memory

to hold me.

how foreign this place

that i have emerged to

how strange the language and bitter the taste

of the air without you beside me.