Mirage

Photo by Lucas Newton on Unsplash

A dream has opened its creaking door
diaphanous and dire
Its silent shadows unfurl into form
balming my earth and air in elations
p e t a l s of a slaughtered rose
The sky stretches its nimbus limbs
around you — you
who I’ve hurried around
in labored breaths
My jade forest and steel city
that I followed
skidding labyrinthine
You — a djinn in desert dunes
the way you s l i n k
through the atolls of my REM iris
glib and free
deft in passing
the thin line of decay
between ripe reap and ravenous ruin
but you who I once knew
in that precision of a first-bitten fruit
in that betrayal of a right-hand rule
a smile smeared on my supine face
when I’d forgotten to awaken
to you
as you are.

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© Shalini C 2020