Folded Things
So often I have bared my soul
and spread its wealth around me
relishing its golden hue.
So often there were poems, paintings, music
that flowed in one stream
that held messages that only I could hear.
But I would take them and
fold them into something I hoped others
would also hear.
So often the folded thing
would resonate in solitude
yet escape the touch of another.
So often I would look to you
and hope that you would see and hear
what I have seen and heard.
But the message would waver
and disappear like smoke ascending into air.
So often I have wondered
why there is no one to share these folded things;
as if only I could understand
their solitude.
As if only I could feel their heartbeat
beneath the emptiness in which they sleep.
If all of these are summed
and divided by love
you would know them as your own children.
You would see them as they are.
Yet they are mysteries viewed
as mere elements of time.
So often I have taken these folded things
and left them behind
for others to unfold and wear.
And when I look back
at their clothing they appear like stars
against the persistent blackness.
Like comets dancing to the forbidden music
of another world.
Calling so softly... when it is heard,
the folded things unfold their beauty
and nothing is forbidden again.
Spiral
Inside there is something gnawing
with silken jaws and wax teeth.
It holds me still in pureness
like a circle whose middle is my cage.
While you went away from me
I was ever tightening my circle.
A spiral cut in glass.
A flower's bloom dropping petals.
A winnowed ball of yarn
spilling color.
I see the inside of your thigh
brilliant in its smoothness,
and I spiral ever closer to your edge.
Paper cut touching I burn
bleeding without pain.
How could I spill so easily
without knowing why?
When I hear your voice
there is no quenching this ache
to hold you.
Like one who draws near and then forgets
the story they came to tell,
I circle you waiting for thread's tautness
to draw us ever closer
though I know not how.
The final luxury is the kiss
of your boundless heart.
The final beauty so pure
all else limps behind blissfully in your wake.
Drawing from your shadows
the light of saplings
lurking on the forest floor.
If I could unbutton you,
take your dress down
I would see a map of my universe.
A phantom limb, grown from
my body like wings sprouting from a chrysalis
reaches for you.
It is the hand of clarity
desperate for your skin
so powerfully bidden
as though a shimmering block of light
cut from black velvet,
stood before me.
And all I could do was to reach out
and touch it,
not knowing why,
but utterly unafraid.
