The Magic dripped out of the night
Out of the holed hold
Of its frail, fence-like fingers
The Magic slid onto and past me
Kissed the cold, cement floor
In its drip drop dripping ecstasy
Then vanished under still
Though no deeper depths I had known

As a towel hung out to dry
The night melted onto its grey shadow
Till the moon was just a moon
And the quiet— piercing shrill and bitter.
I felt my fingers go dry
And my body
Sensed not the silky speech of my palm
Nor the whispers of sneaky light

And the city
Was a song torn apart—
Every horn upon me lunged
I slipped through the silence, and fell, but
Fell not enough
I said, Magic, Magic, take me along
But the floor for me was a circus uninviting
And in my wretched solidity, I lay limp
Listening in to the echoes
The echoes, the echoes of a laughter so far away
(I said, Magic, Magic, take me along)

And the moon was just a moon
The evening star I could not see
And sleep was a ragged little thing,
As the sharp dripping,
With last and last of the Magic, was gone
I sank, I sank, immobile —
Oh, In the ever-stirring city
It was a night lonely

The promethean draw of winter stars
new leaves bathed in twinkling lights
hung by the low-slung Moon
sweet, love-sick pearl
called by the Sea and unable to answer--
You roll the clouds in waves across the sky
cloaking yourself when it is too painful
for him to see
what he cannot hold.

Self,
Here are the ways you have been loved
Instead of the ways you have lost it.

You have known love the color of autumn dogwood  
The deep red of want
Rising in the cheeks like steam.
The magnetic pull of moon and stars
Orbits spinning until they are null
The rush of blood in the ears
Tempests in the paths of plans.

You have known love the shade of fall juniper
The argent blue of constancy
Silver dust on fingertips
Invisible until tasted.
Pepper and pine, the flavor of rain
And washes of hope.

You have known love the hue of October roses
The bittersweet fragile pink
Bright and fast and pure
delicate as a dream on waking,
fading in the opening of an eye,
Its memory more solid than its time.

Self,
You have loved and loved and loved
And you have been loved.
And on the nights this does not fill your cup
When your arms are empty
Your voice dry,
Wait, work, and wonder
Through solstice, equinox, eclipse,
For each in their season returns and returns
And all seasons come anew.

I move through the woods in ritual
The trees have shed their leaves like
Third sons and eldest daughters,
They cling bravely until the wind uncurls their hands
and bears them away from home.  
A scavenger, I search them out, hold them between finger and thumb,
Their last embrace.

Sometimes I will pluck a fading life from a branch,
melded amber and crimson,
the dregs of sun in their veins,
offered in the last vibrance of summer’s heat.
At home, I press them between pages,
tiny spells of weight and gravity
cast to keep their color.
I know this magic,
Autumn and I are kindred in this,
Our eyes are the same soft green and sepia of hiraeth
cradles of remembrance,
nets always cast back into memory.
Like all memories
There are a thousand useless,
The umber of old blood, trodden underfoot,
the seconds that dripped by unmarked.
But we hold the fragile, happy few,
High upon a shelf
the glowing phosphorus of laughter
The currant red of a last kiss
Returned to and returned to
Like an unanswered prayer.

Dissolved in traffic
we forget ourselves
Metal and muscle of bone, of beast
Marrow of bloom
and whip-quick flapping of pigeon wings
When father coughs his crackling logs,
we know he arrives, we hide away our games

why don’t you study, why don’t you study, where have you been

So terrified of the world he,
with his sky-shaking speech.
father, father
what have you seen?

My limbs twitch and eyes flee
He knows not what to say, and we
never learned.
Taut skin aged to crease, and all that clover smoke

and dust from road,
It sits so stout in his placid gaze
I sink, I sink.
Say, father, father, will you not leave?

Dissolved in traffic—
Gyres of grey and their loosened rings
mimicked by the reeling of kites
So long he roamed
Within those slithering maps
almost became,
almost them.

Memorised the city on his very palms.

Father, father, I never could learn
the twist and twists and turns of its trails

The city got lost and I,
And I, oh— I

The whispers fade
of footsteps strange, and closed are hearts
in breathing reliefs
father, father,
What have you learned; father, father
we become ourselves
father,
The birds all settle, the metal melts, the
noises die, the traffic, oh, the traffic
your good old mistress, we forget of it—
father, father,
What have you learned

My sisters and I jest
That men never get over us.
We have been named
Muses, angels, succubi, leanan sidhe
But we are les belles dames avec merci
And that is their undoing.
Our breath has left them gasping
With unfilled lungs
We never meant to be their oxygen
But they drink us in like drowning men.

We didn’t ask for this,
But disarming, we are soft enough
For them to float in
Belly up, eyes to distant stars
Singing the sirens song that stirs in our veins.

Behind our teeth rests the love
The world has failed to give them till now
There are holds in the knowledge
that our fingertips find the hollowed spaces,
mother wounds, clefts where trust was carved out,
And they clutch our palms to staunch the bleeding.

We never asked for this,
They cherish the brittle changelings of us
until they are crushed in the coals of our eyes
Eggshell ideals, fragile as egos.
Blown by the sea wind in the strands of our hair
they are scattered, undone.

The distance drifts between, inevitable
And full they turn away to starve
We cut the mooring line
After one too many storms,
And search
For safer
Harbor.

On the overpass
a man throws his arms up
In crucifixion grace  
His expression is wandering between
Elation and desecration
Face ****** to the late afternoon sun
Belly pressed to the rail like the bow of a ship

My stomach curdling
I pass beneath him
Panicked, I check the rear view for swerving cars and relieved,
find none.
At home the 911 call list shows nothing
On that stretch of road.

I hope he was only greeting the autumn
An icarus whose wings
Never melted.