Find me dancing on your shadow,
I'll be leaning on the turn.
I dream of you, for Heaven's sake. On starlit nights,
you're far away.
I call out.
To whom I do not know.
My mind dwells in distance.
My thoughts collide and trail off, out of cities;
careening ships through mist and pine.
I try to catch my balance on your eyelids as I
push down,
heavy on swollen, blue skin;
Slipping on lashes wet with
memories
that you will not share with me,
and I dare not ask about them
because I'm scared of losing my footing.
I feel your darkness like a blanket,
while I wish it would
pummel me like a flood.
Tell me, I want to know, what have you seen, boy?
Certainly war,
crushed fingers and toes;
red rivers.
What have you felt?
Certainly love, warmth, and kindness;
red satin garments.
Come on,
you've seen this before and your pulse still lingers.
Irregular,
scattered
and a little too strong, but still.
I know you've been there before,
where the fear is asphyxiating,
and sudden as a red fox in the wood.
I know you know every corner,
every thicket,
every red flag of romance.
and sometimes,
that lost love,
she palpates,
sticky in your throat.
Will you ever let me dance there,
or is that air still coarse and salty on your tongue?
Are you ever home?
Because I knock and knock on your splintered door
and I throw stones to your shattered windows
and I sleep on your scorched, frost-bitten yard
and I wait.
With impeccable patience, I wait.
I do because
sometimes behind your silence,
at that particular time of night,
you know the time,
when the moon howls at the wolf,
when the mist makes love to the pines,
and the field mouse cries,
and it is so cold,
I have to dance on your shadow,
follow the turn.
Far, far away from ego and hate and cold, steel buildings;
just a little bit adrift, hopeful, and dreamy, too.
I can't resist.
I have learned to lean,
a whirling dervish on your breeze.