To call
The moonlight onto the floor
But only if as silky as the curtains,
So call them too.
To pull
Out of the stainless fog
A pink tree.
There's a danger
In moving closer,
In finding what you'd thought were stars
Are floodlights to keep bug and burglar away —
But there's nothing memory can't fix
After we've fixed on it.
Cars slide down an unlit hill
With beams that allow us to see
Even at this distance,
Even from our frosty spyglass
We get a tingle watching
The bug-eyed Jaguar sloping down,
As we imagine ourselves as birds
Or, rather, ourselves, diving with the birds
Into pools that ripple as we drop.
We've stolen the sound of the birds
And made music out of it,
And now we hear music when we hear the birds;
We'll close the window before acknowledging
That it's not.
We close the shade to repeat the lesson.
We keep it closed to master it.
How much can you see
Over the ocean at night.
You hear your ears ring with your blood music.
Your eyes strain against the black.
You chase down every glimmer, every crack.
You could sit there for hours
Reforming the rocks whose dark mystery excites you,
But the sun may come to burn it off and overtake
What you've held.
You can't bear the sun
Yet.
