But no. No. We just
Swing. Boots and stardust.
Sometimes conspiring, sometimes conversing.
You ask after the
Wide euphoria
Of the cosmos I once delighted in traversing.
I sing of the ships
Who journey in dips
Of dark matter waves with their tall glowing sails,
Their asteroid hulls,
Space debris like gulls,
And their strange sparkling flags made of comets' white tails.
Else I sing of plans
Made for far-below lands,
Made by councils of entities I spectate on.
Else I sing of pools
Formed outside the rules
Of physics and time, in the rivets beyond
Even our own vision,
And what a collision
There is when one leaps about in these forbidden lakes!
They ripple and spin,
The time trapped within
Trembles and all it once commandeered shakes.
I wish you would go
With me to them. Oh,
We could run through the dregs of the forgotten times.
But always you begin
Your own tale with a grin
And I lose myself to the deep tolls, tides, and chimes
Of your whisper-voice.
And given the choice,
I would steal it away and raise cities with it.
But you, I would lose.
And so I never choose
To obey the cold reasoning of my cold wit.
You tell me about
Discoveries made without
The aid of the charts and the archives and scrolls
That I myself possess.
How to tend watercress.
How to tie bows, bake cider, crescent rolls.
How to work a compass.
How to raise a rumpus.
How to make chocolate. How to stir sugar tea.
How to toast seeds,
Or see to the needs
Of fish that beg for them at docks over seas.
How to write poems,
Or craft cathedral domes,
Or teach a girl how to dance on her stardusty feet..
You rose then. I stared.
You said 'stand'. I was scared.
You took my hands and lifted. We stood on the swing seat.
Without another word,
As if you hadn't heard
The sudden, tumultuous, unsettling restart
Of the dust-filled wires,
The sparks and the fires,
The nebulae, implosions, and flux of my heart,
You held my glass waist.
Lifted your eyes and faced
My terrified ones with the same fear in your glance.
You closed them against
It to recompense
Both of our vulnerabilities. And we danced.
Never more than a step.
To the seat, we kept.
It was mostly a sway. Continuous. Leaning.
Back and forth we went.
Closer. Closer. It sent
Shivers parading my spine- no, careening
In gusto downwards,
In masses and herds,
Clouding my mind and my thoughts- and my fears.
You were so gentle and,
Hand in hand, waist in hand,
We stayed for perhaps seconds. I pull them into years
In my dreams, memories.
Like drops make up seas,
The seconds I spent with you on that swaying swing
Are what congregate
To make me up. Too late
Did I realize exactly how to phrase it, to sing
My love to your ears.
But all of my fears
Replaced the revelation when you softly announced
That your air had run out.
'Good-bye, my devout
Little dancer, my lady, troublemaker not trounced..'
I couldn't.. reply.
How could I? Could I?
So I watched as your fingers slipped out of mine, found
The rope, there they held,
Like my lovely speech felled
By the limits of loving a man from the ground.
