song of the silent

i see you, too.
i see your smile
your eyes
spinning in the vortex of their story

so pure as june
pure like bear tracks
in the mud.

this night
I’d like to say
“your presence melts
like drops of dew,
your presence weeps
along dawn’s river…”

Volumes
I could write
and your presence
lifts and carries

(i want to dip in the pool of your mouth
sail the wind of your breath
write the song of your soul)

and i ask myself
eyes wading into abysses of mirror

will you
dust away the clouds
sipping mango kiwi tea, sighing “thank you,
cherubim collection,
good-bye, pretty angels,”

creek seamless, as it always was,
window open wide
to the question mark of night.

but I’ve not drifted from the center
of a pendant grief

and I wonder
between courses, between the delicate nights, anthologies of original poetry, gripping and provocative poetry, poignant, poignant, poetry,

will our curtain sweep a barren stage, or will it tease?
love, my love
linger with me

and will you watch
as I swim in my own question? swim
naked, rushed and free?

will you stand by in silence
will you, rainless sky,
let run the blood of my thoughts?

I am a pair of oyster eyes

oyster eyes, oyster eyes
I am a pair of oyster eyes
resting on the tea leaves

counting waves

toes gliding through grains of definition, my hair
loose as conviction.

“you are not a rock”
i consider

“but the sea”
yes, the sea swelling with infection, the thinning moon,
the concocter
of noxious chemicals and the chancellor
of their administration to tiny babes:
we sing your praise
I sing

she sang
we have sung

and I,
like a candle, breathe
release the groaning twilight kingdom

fall

in love or supplication.
while
autumn palettes
persist in dancing across the wall
of my back

and the rain that falls
tremulous from the midnight kingdom
evokes a memory (or was it a poem, or a dream)

wet mud
shivers against the earth:

strums of balalaika

coupled with a voice, words
dragged into the sea.