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a.c.
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Sweet friend, you send words down my spine
despite the mercury on this gnat-fattening day
when summer sweats in the trees,
hawks carry the sky upon their shoulders,
and the lilacs are hung with chalk shadows.
Never will my green hankering draw you near,
not in summer, whose loon-long serenade
whispers through the lunatic thrill of breezes,
not when spring floods the trees with petaled rain,
not in winter, when the wrens fly against the scolding wind.
Nothing like manna will fall from your eyes
into my gaping heart, whose spinning
drives me to my knees. Clutching the hot poker
of prayer, I crouch beside nettles,
and dare hope the way blind horses leap.
How I long to hold your face like a bouquet
and inhale the mysterious scent of your dreams
when the summer grass is green as a dye.
Encircled by your arms, I would take flight,
my hips flap like herons in slow even beats.
Of course, in time, that boiler down of savory days,
night will narrow my heart's best schemes
and drain the world-bright fever from my bones.
Then, sure as autumn, my love will rot,
cell by sound, hearth by bone, while trumpets gush
the silent noise of stays, and the thief of always
carries me away from the world's sweet mischief
and stammering pride, from the what-ifs
fluttering like maypole ribbons
around the mast of your incontrovertible love.
In time, night will settle my heart's hash,
slug through regret, set all to rest, and rub even
the steepest cares away. In time. But not today.
-D. Ackerman
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020503
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