cactus flower

Eyes closed I don't know
that you are sleeping.
Eyes opened I don't know
that you can see.
To begin anew too much like wishing,
to end at last too much like escape.
Over night the cactus blooms,
flaring pink and yellow
straight from the mystery of dreaming.
Change is constant

from the rising of the day
to the chilling of the flesh--
that insistent fever
bound inevitably to break.
The rising tide where I close
your eyes, the dream and the toil
give way to ash and polished stone.
The stars we only know
seem from long ago,
the night now lost
these blinding, writhing streets.

These last breaths rise,
a polity of chitinous angels
reclaiming the flesh as birthright--
so fierce and slow the motions
concealed beneath the earth.
The light passes, a problem of
sudden geometry. The rough
world averaging out curved smooth,
so hard to cling to when certainty
slips despite the dawn,
there is the silence of the answer.