Ocean Hours

We lie here, dusk lapping at the feet of day, arms
flung wide without grasping, thoughts lost
in the quiet space between headboard and wall, fluttering
from book to upturned book, following,
for a moment, the shaft of light
prying through draperies, where the sun too
has stretched one soft arm in sleep.

Our breaths rise beyond the ceiling,
lift like prayers into the cold day,
looking for solitude or perspective,
looking like one hawk wheeling
into the sun. They will drift there
until dusk sweeps in,
shatters the horizon with rain.

We lie here at the end of dreaming
and the beginning of blood, our hair damp
with promises. We lie so lightly our bodies
leave no imprint, two small wishes
separated from voice.

Sometimes we try speech--
send shards of ourselves into the air
to be what they might be.
Those that drift west are burned quickly
by the glowering sun. Those that drift east
we follow with our sky-eyes for a day
and a half at least, until they too
are lost, devoured by the shadows
of impassive mountains.

We lie here at the corner of worlds--
Tomorrow hovers in your eyes, a pale wash of night
spreading into today, the color of a thought just lost.
In my arms I hold the setting sun, each finger
too bright to look at directly, each palm
a bonfire of need. Where we meet
the sky is sharp and dangerous, like
this moment and the last.

Some expectation has slipped between
the cracks of us, and we lie here, caught
in the ocean hours, unwilling to slip into sleep,
two tides fighting the moon. 

                                    Published 2010 in The Meadow

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