After Not Writing (Encounter 1)

Imposing Night — pressing down with your low hum, 
widening dark wakefulness, bright — under a thousand bright mountains, bright and unripe, this humming, this candle teasing oxygen.

Neurons pulse in a room, on a Thursday, and now dawn
breaking early on this cliff at the edge of a dusty worn out road, 
again too early, palms search for surface, some smooth cool sleep hiding, and so, I abide, with this immovable gesture and quietly scratch at this page, with my broken tongue and dreamless sleep.

It’s a long drawn out encounter, with my lover who has been long away, 
like a ribbon of shoreline, lost in a dense fog.

I travel between sand and saltwater, seeking the deep tunnel 
that will ease this waiting in Time again, wanting to walk out unhindered,
but I am flat, open eyed and staring instead full of longing.

Someone is holding green grapes in a noisy market, 
 and chewing something bitter.

A bird is plucking a twig, a wheel slips, oil splatters.

The world is moving, even as I can’t move,

and the wind has been blowing on these steps

back down to my heart, while I’ve been away.