effigy

The veil hides it away until the air is all but gone. These sweet syllables the only fuel ever to find this escape, the dark ocean and the drawled fishing net. The harmless drowning that dreams allow us, sound slipping away as the voice drifts into memory. A tilt of the tongue, a sweeping release of teeth. Such a smile loving mimicry of a bite, that dense pause so urgent and bright. I watch this burlesque of lip and threat, your mouth as you speak of slips and secrets, this treatise to hide and seek.

Whatever is left of this fire, this childhood's first blush of want bound to flesh? Whatever is left of these sweet kindlings, these earnest original sins? The seas sleep, the skies boil, so the story sun after sun. I slow with the lay of the light and the leanings of the earth. I scratch at some long lost thought, some face I only know in the dark. I await the news of the weather, thumbing back your hair, the rain conspiring with the fog outside. Your mouth in silhouette whispering smoke.

It is late and I listen as the music pools around the room, this sinking feeling too little like flight. The itchy skin of the song rubbing against tile and wet cement. That music that spills like broken bricks, time and dust finding their way back home. I can see your smile, adrift in some dark room. I can hear your laugh, less like breath than breathing, a buoyancy built of light. That white respite of that open hearted smile. The revelation of so much bared tooth and bone.