We had such casual faith,
such hopes for you,
a poison crawling under the skin.
each of us, believing ourselves a part of it.
making of you an expression of ourselves
transient fleeting mercury beetles on a mirror
intoning
this is always better
and this
and this
better
and better
until the shining loop of wire at your neck snaps free
you were then a casualty of our faith
and false underneath
We danced and mingled, mingled and danced.
she danced, I mingled
she mingled, I danced
She was single and I mangled a dance!
then she stood for a moment
in the midst of the mingling, dancing
dimlit knot of humanity swaying
swaying and saying
If I drink some more, everyone will like me
and I said
everyone else.
You've always been with me
hovering in the periphery
just out of reach.
Like the elusive flicker of a faint star
in my immediate past,
a subtle coloring of my perceptions.
from a time
when I heard you softly call my name as I dreamed
when a world rose and fell on the sound of your voice
and your eyes made some vital
and intangible thing twist inside me.
It's almost obscene how long you've haunted me
with the taste of your skin
and the feel of your spine
beneath my fingers
I would count each vertebrae,
tracing each rib
marvel and memorize these structures
of which you were made.
Without thinking about it directly
I took it as a given
that noone could take that away.