A Slow Promise of Return

The concern is with beginnings, 

as your face has become expanse 

and the zodiacal light is Cheshire 

in its hover, settle, and unapproachability.  

And the cantilever of your ankle, 

close to earth and discretely of its elements.  

I should follow the halo of the rain.  

A drop that parts your face

travels like the memory 

of a lover slowly unzipping 

the unspoken meridian dunes 

of your late August body.  

Your Perseid calls over the midnight canyon;  

the river Eridanus gathers.  

Bow and open  and touch.  

Damp and whisper.  

Riverside trees shudder and conceive.  

The dawn is ice. Daylight falls 

like clouds cut by red-ribboned 

scissors, into a feathering of snow, 

here and there, indiscriminate.   

A freckled scatter.  

A slow promise of return.  

A story told just before sleep.