Another Moon

Suddenly without you I felt myself adrift.

Perhaps that is why

*

Last night

*

I dreamt I was floating on my back on an endless ocean.

Above, brilliant white clouds eddied across the sky

Like smoke skimming over the glowing silver moon.

Had I seen tiny, hopeful stars flickering as dance

I would have wished for you on every single one, but there were none,

*

Just the moon,

Which plummeted into my endless ocean

To cause a tidal surge that carried me

To a distant shore a world away,

Its sand aglow as though shards and dust of the luminous fallen moon.

I scooped a handful that fell through my fingers

And a breeze I couldn’t feel glittered it away into the darkness

While some grains clung to my palm like a handheld constellation

I brought to my face

And it smelled like you, warm and pink,

Before the scent fled on velvet heels leaving me wanting only more.

*

I stood, still wet with sea water weighing down

A flannel shirt I only then realized I wore; when I removed it and my jeans

The ocean lapped up thirsty to carry them away.

I plunged after them, not for warmth or concealment

But because I realized they too would carry your fragrance,

But by the time I grasped their fabric they smelt only of the sea

And tears.

I let the tide carry them away.

*

I waded back through the susurrant ocean to the sand

Where I stood, trembling. The sea’s whisper seemed to usher me on,

So I walked forward.

*

There was no longer any moon by which to see but still the sand glowed.

*

I considered no direction besides forward.

Just a few paces later I felt a sudden stillness and paused,

Turned. I could no longer see the ocean,

Just my own footprints tracing back as far as the horizon,

Dark deliberate patches that lingered in that shimmering sand

Until a breeze like a lover’s whisper across perfect skin vanished them away.

*

I turned and continued forward,

Where I saw a tower in the distance, at first small

But quickly gaining height until finally it was so tall

I could not discern the top. It was round hewn of dark blue stone

That glimmered like stars and was warm — but not hot — beneath my fingertips.

*

I shivered.

*

A large archway marked the entrance to the tower; within

Its walls glowed faintly. A silver staircase lined the wall, spiraling up

Into darkness, while in its center, five feet around and from the ground,

A blue spere glowed like a dying star.

As I reached toward it, it became a silver pole, toppled toward me so that

I had no choice but to support it. Its surface was warm but it was light

As though hollow, and I hefted it over my shoulder.

*

I considered those silver stairs, following their spiral

Up the tower; far above, a silver-blue beam of light bisected clear

Across gloom. It did not look solid enough to be a bridge,

But neither had glowing sphere that had become the pole

Hoisted over my shoulder. I began to climb, and if asked

I would have said that I wanted to see that light, touch that light,

Feel that light, but I might also have said that I hoped

I might find you atop the stairs, which I ascended with careful tread

For they were steep and slippery and seemed crudely constructed

And I was still trying to balance that pole though I was uncertain

Why I did not want to put it down.

*

Up and up I rose for what seemed like ages

Before I discovered that shaft of light spilled through a window

Carved into the tower all. As I approached it I reached forward,

For like the sphere I thought it might take new solid form,

But it did not. Perhaps, too, I expected warmth, that it might feel

Evanescent on my skin, but I stepped into it

And let it wash over my still nude body and I discovered

It had no warmth, nor evanescence. It was just light.

*

Beyond the window as the world, and the sand which seemed to glow

Without source looked instead as of ice over a cruel and hostile world.

From that new height, out in the distance, I could just make out

The ocean. It appeared the tide was coming in,

And with the lapping waves came to me memories of you,

Of your long hair and your crystal eyes, of your soft lips and touch and skin,

Of your warmth and your wetness, of being inside of you

And how wonderful you felt and how much like home. I thought

Of your skin shimmering with sweat as mine must have

As I emerged from the sea, and I remembered the fragrance of the ocean,

The taste of salt and tears. The memory of you warmed me

As the light had not, breathed over me like the breeze I had not felt,

Shivered through me like the stars absent from the heavens,

And I thought I could drown in those memories as I had not

In the ocean, and the idea came with no terror.

*

More stairs loomed before me into the gloom, and I wondered

Again if I would find you at the top of the tower,

And if I did, would you remember me? Would you recognize me?

Some mornings I do not, though I am not certain whether I mean

Memory or recognition.

*

I know I need to let you go, but I do not, just as I did not

Set down that long, silver pole over my shoulder, nor hesitate

To continue up those stairs. The tower seemed to keep growing

Until suddenly there was no longer anything above me as the stairs

Gave way to darkness like brushed velvet, and I stood atop

As you did not. The wind swirled and whistled, stirring

From the rough-hewn stone roof-floor a fine coating of sand,

Which spun and twisted and danced to form a sea of dust deep

As my waist.

*

I waded forward, feeling granular currents rush and slip

As I approached the very edge of the tower. I dipped my free hand

Into the mist, feeling soft give over my fingertips as I closed them

Into a fist. The world seemed farther down than I had realized

And larger. From that height, I could see not just the ocean I remembered

But others, and I realized I knew those too from countless other nights

When I’d first floated in them and crossed the sand and ascended the tower.

A tear escaped my eye, and I watched it fall like a single drop of rain

While wondering if it would reach the sand; if it did,

I realized, it would form another ocean.

*

I let the pole slip from my shoulder, held it horizontal

Over the tower’s edge before letting it go. It fell at first one end

Over the other before it straightened to javelin-plummet

Until I could no longer see it.

*

I held my fisted hand past the tower’s edge. Wind blew the sand

Into the darkness, to sparkle and flash and shimmer, and there were no stars

In that empty sky but I wished anyway, a million exquisite wishes

On a million grains of sand. I looked out over all those inviting oceans

In that strange, glowing world, and I stepped forward.

*

I fell then as I fell for you, truly and madly and without hesitation.

The wind whipped through my hair, dried my cheek, and I understood

As I fell, that I would plummet down, down, down into the tear-ocean

Below, plunging through the surface before rising again to find myself

Floating in the middle of another ocean, looking up at another sky,

Another moon.

And maybe if I do it a thousand more times

On a million more nights, exactly like this one, maybe if I cross

The sand and hoist the pole and climb the stairs, I will find, at the top,

*

You.

*

And if I float and walk and heft and climb

As many times as there are grains of sand that become stars

To find you there,

Will I know how to stop dreaming?