How the Dry Spell Ended

For months she crisscrossed
a hot dry path
until her lips split
and she called out for comfort.

The rains came and she opened her mouth
greedy for each drop that filled her.

She was a river
and fish leapt from her
until her hook was baited
and she became the worm.
 

The ear, taken by surprise
encloses the dark,
its singular humming.
Your own song could confuse it,
so keep it sotto voce.

To separate nuance from noise
takes practice: let whorls that circle
the smooth-muscled tunnel
swell like summer.

Against the drums,
a percussion of bones moves
intricate things in their fringed peripheries,
and a spiral shell, like the one you once held
in your six year old hands, twitches
with a truth you had to learn to hear.

 

YOU SEARCH FOR OUR TRACK

You are nearer now,
a flicker of light upon a spine,
floating toward me
over carousels of luggage,
through time zones
pocked with stoplights
and the bulge of alternate lives.
I wait with nerves vibrating
like colors on a map,
one stumble away
from cold fluorescence
and worst case scenarios
while you stand still for a moment,
perhaps waiting for the hour to fulfill its destiny
before you bound down the escalator,
eyes on the exit, its revolving door,
your fingers curling around the handle
of the cab that will pull you
into the roaring rush hour surge.