only when dark falls
can I find my way
echolocation
my cries rebounding off
your skin - a drum head

Chladni patterns shaken and drawn
bow-strings of hair
the press of a finger
to the still center of all vibration
surmounts the waking netherworld

between fall fires
and winter baptisms
where your face seeps
with leaf-colors into the earth

only with dusk
are my eyes closed, vestigial
does my nose find in the chill
crispness of sheets
the absolute silence
of unadulterated snow-

white skin which my feet dance
into foreign alphabets
snow angels glittering
that indescribable shade of blue
a cold which stretches me tight
arches my back into cyrillic curves

I rub bare branches into fire
your breath in my lungs
hisses pass my lips

night falls before
day breaks


� 2003 by PJ Nights
previously published in ERWA