Sea Ghost
thought I knew what rain was after a month of it fell past like one could know by how it sloughs across tile or how it brightens the leaves of peaches
By Timothy James Lane3 years ago in Poets
I have said "I'll never forget you" once you had lost your voice utterly at the very edge of safety like that dream we all have
the fringe of the morning was already ablaze chalk feet ashen tongue blooming alone in dormant bodies taking skin from the patchwork of the sycamores
coming back from the dream sick with mosaic virus at night my skin floats off in patches almost like paper burning at dawn it returns
waking up with numb fingers having slept wrong in the bellies of stars it's the middle of the night the mask forms and falls
and so what if it was you a naked heart in the rain stuck in that liminal space singing a name from before birth our lives now half gone
a dropped heartbeat a scion a lantern in the sand we had watched the seaside cathedral as it was gutted by an army of madmen
the sun had drowned that day we found the meadow burning embers of grass rained like fireflies and we chased them rabidly
a fistful of orchids mouth for heaven's scarlet words the pandemic rages in my heart alight like ribbons of cloth and we're sitting by the poised teeth
a journey for broken feet out past the farthest fires the words for renouncement through blackmail and indiscipline I had found no one to follow
I had remembered the last of the colors before I swam the distance to place green ferns at her feet I would find her fingers open