I want to wake up early with you

April 10, 2012

I want to wake up early with you and walk through the morning village

Dew like silver on the black bridge,

a silent fog on the water, a canopy

softening bare silhouettes along the canal.

The sky, blue-grey,

still sleeping in a warm bed, in a room

where the cold clings to the curtains and walls,

a house with a dark, creaking floor,

the air heavy from a long winter’s night.

Four birds in the distance,

barely separate,

move through the morning and

                                             drift away.

Seventeen dreaming

January 10, 2012

Seventeen dreaming

I love

driving at night

on the highway

when no one else is around

and it’s so quiet

that I can hear

everything. 

I can feel

the quiet compression

of the pedals

under my feet,

and the road reaches

and reaches and reaches,

as if stretching tight limbs,

white parallel lines

yawning on

forever. 

The needle

on the speedometer

glides up

to sixty miles per hour,

and hovers:

a small, slender,

silent bird. 

The world ahead of me

breathes

in the darkness,

a warm lake of night sky

that never ends.

beasts

January 25, 2011

beasts

we began in the air,

at the top of the mountain,

skis poised for a moment

at the very edge of that narrow trail.

but then ready-set-go we flew down,

reckless, careless,

yelling laughing taunting down

as the wind whipped our bare faces raw,

and at the end,

our bodies each tucked tight under,

you would somehow always win. 

we never noticed how close we came

to the trees,

to the edge.

we would still be gasping, grinning

as the chairlift freed our feet from the earth,

until the air around us was only filled

with the quiet vision of our exhalations

our chests would still throb

with hushed rabbit-breathing as, always,

his head tilted carefully to the side

and rested on my shoulder. 

a soft snowfall brushed, stung, numbed our cheeks;

our blue eyes stared straight ahead;

our mouths said nothing. 

we both watched

as the peak of the mountain approached us,

as it always did.

we each wished silently

never again to touch our skis

to the slick, steep ground.

if only we could have stayed in the sky

forever.