Published on: 8/24/2005
Fall of Light

A shadow folds his arms and stands at the edge of my gravel path
        next to the lake.
I bend my head to miss a branch.
When I look up again, there is only deep fern shade,
But I have seen it with the corner of my eyes.
I have felt its presence thump my heart.
My nerve endings spin and hum like a cd stuck in a player,
Trying to eject, trying to play
No music to be heard but a hungry whirr that says something is
        broken.
I can't say it's my heart. My heart is safely cocooned away.
This shade haunts the other side of me,
The warm dangerous spot I try to close off with satin bows and
        bitten lips.
It's good we drink when we are together in our crowds
I don't sleep when this shadow yawns close.
I pace the floors and stare at ceilings
I flick channels with the remote making the moving pictures dance
        the light on my cream walls.
The drinking gives me an excuse to stumble blue-eyed into the
        cloudless morning,
To sink into distant gazes and start when spoken to by beings of
        flesh and illumination.
I am so bone-tired that when the penumbra reaches out to run a
        dark finger down my spine, I can't move.
I lie still in its black arms and rub my cheek against its rough
        chest,
Press my aching forehead against ebony muscle and sigh;
Enfolded, engulfed, eclipsed, and too weary to engage.
What if I gave all to the fall of night and did not rise from his arms
        again?
What light would come of it?