pieces

A piece of the moon stuck to the fleeing of the day, clinging to that last clasp of blue before it all just gives way to black. So many wings, so many hopes bent on escape. These flocks that you would have thought had had the whole fall to settle, at this very late moment remembering the air. These birds that flow and stir, reminding us that heaven is loss delayed.

Later on I am sorting through the papers. Later on the night is near and cold. My cough is wet and the dust has settled. All the scraps and sparrows saved for some further dare. All the days spent littered with worrying after the rain. The things I wrote and the things I will never. The fragile fraction between the word and the breath.

You can find me spattered across the calendar, my name a trail of ink and absence. You can find me in that moment while you wake, your hands wandering and warm. Bits of tinsel and threaded popcorn, that abnormal seasonal shine. I frequent the depth of that dark open window. I crowd the shadows, thinking of you as I dissolve into those myths of sleep. Somehow in your absence, always looking up.