hidden

It is more than the miles between us. It is more than the sun in my eyes. The dusk is all nets and tethers, tamping down the powder, capturing so much with wings. Then the night arrives, all whispers and grasping hands. The world is too much to wait for. The world is too much to know.

Past midnight and the sound of feet, the sad lament playing on the radio. The hallways echo, stained with rat traps and dust. All these animal noises, lit by circumstance, filling the air. Noble brass and ardent gas, everything on the rise between these musty walls. All these skins and scratching, this sinking feeling all that I know.

It is less than a moment, it is less than chance. That moon whittled down so, smiling from between leaf and roof. That perpetual polka of Mexican music driving by, the air still brittle with birdsong. Once you were there, then so much left of your being gone. Salt on the flesh, the tang of smoke and want. Every ache painted so fully, the pleasure always left hidden behind some eyes. A road full of gravel, a sky still dazzled with stars.