back burners

It’s strange the things you find when you go looking. It’s odd what the season brings around. Spring has been beating around bud and bush, green reachings and the sun where it sticks. Now the wind blows and blows, a little chill for the windowsill, a little stirring about the stars. The limbs stretch and sway, the horned moon having its way, the hint of frost burning your very bones. The words are never there until you look, but the calendar insists. The words always unwanted, saying what they will, leaving what they may.

It depends on where you point the light. It depends on how you say you prayers. What you see, what you dare. The narrow creep down the corridor, a light peeking around the corner. The heavy hallway and the door left open, that waking in the thick of dreams to feel a watcher in the dark. A weight like a held breath and the senses spilling over, a shape in the window, a sudden rush of wings. Heart pounding, about to pull back the curtains, afraid of the gaze that looking might reveal. The mirror watching side eyed, the moon another tide.

We wait between the shapes, we stride amongst the summons. The world churns along, the clatter of stones tumbled by the crashing ocean, the restless report of the shore. We are colored in skies and sad goodbyes, comedy and tragedy the eternal scene partners stepping on their lines, plots and schemes and pipe dreams where bury every beat. I wish this was a letter, some big gesture, the best on its way at last. But it’s only dusty walls and a window left open to the night. It’s teenaged music and tomcat appetites, the trash fire at the end of the world. Last laughs and epitaphs, and smoke so you know.