WHILE THE DRAGON SLEEPS

Now the long drive is over. The summit is ours.
Below, a harlequin sprawl marks the sweet spread of home.
This is equipoise:  snuggled, facing, in Mulholland’s arms.
I can melt in her eyes, and she in mine. And,
though lovers be children, the darkness, the silence
are benign. Magicians, we vanish in blankets and springs.
The wheels are aligned. Gears mesh and grind.
Perfume, colluding, allies with the musk of cologne—
thrilling the senses, filling the cab, till only the vista breathes.
Time heaves. The basin sighs, settles.

In the pale of the moon, the city at night is a great, sleeping beast.
The red jewels of taillights are glimmers in his dream.

Ah, sentience…behind the wheel I have wings!
My course is the broken line. In my arm I have one
whose wings have been pinned. Like moths to flame we fly.
Light boggles, light binds, light beckons from lampposts
where bright sentries swing their globes past the windshield
like pearls on a string. Hush—she is sleeping;
her breathing a drug, a soft, seductive song.
Each breath is in rhyme, is in time with the rhythm
of traffic like passing sighs.
The signals have fetched us home,
dead on the beat of the dragon’s pulse.

Budding gods are we all, in the splendor of our kind;
our very eyes are stars, our minds are rapt with light.
In this luster we emerge to leave our legacy behind.
The chrysalis is shed:  a butterfly takes wing
while the dragon sleeps tonight.