it’s only seven
I’d like to touch you
a little more-
said the boy
to the bed love
said the vulture
to the flesh
said the sun-bleach
to the rocks
said the canyon
to its eddies
said the body
to the wall –
it’s only seven
I’d like to touch you
a little more
it’s only seven but
you’re catching fish
on a colder river somewhere.
it’s seven but you’re held
between evergreen and snow.
and the windy
cheek-slapping world
is still out there
even when your wheels
aren’t flinging me through space.
so break me
down.
darkness
in the desert.
heat
and cold.
I’m nervous too,
I’m nervous
too.
so let it go;
like leaves let go
of branches. like the sky
loses
light.
I can almost
hear you reading,
book balanced
on your lap,
your hard clear
voice creeping
vine-like through
the membrane dark.
always
more thoughts.
no forest
for the faces.
do you know
a word that means
this –
late august and the blue
clouding over,
a fading
acceleration,
great stillness,
finite loss.
the space is tangled
between us
between us, birds are catching
on the half-moon sky.
birds are catching
on the power lines.
the space is tangled and the time
is an erratic
static
thing.
now the birds are flying backwards.
the birds
blown off in blackened
murmurations
are past. the time
pulled
soul-stitches
through December
looped
around the starfish June
settled
rows across
the cornfield March
and fluttered
loose ends
through October silk.
the space is tangled and
do you think
the birds
have seen that moon?
its raveled knotting
to the earth
and its tugging
tangles too.
