Shifts

The sky has closed in on me, presenting a grey shroud as if it were a much-anticipated birthday gift. “Happy New Year, now be subdued.” It is dark and I am tired both from lack of sleep and dreams that have haunted me like a helpless child just out of reach; haunting for sixteen months without relief.

She is a familiar spirit visiting me for some sin of which I’m yet unaware. The lodestone of my heart; I am doomed time and time again to have my decks shattered upon the rocks only to have them rebuilt and redisconfigured.

9:25 am. A newspaper wakens me to a new year and alerts me to the successful relationship of ——- and —— and my mind is glad but my heart pulls the grey shroud from the sky and wraps it round like a blanket, tight as the grave.

Had I known ten years ago where I’d sit today, would I have set the same course? Would I have chosen safer seas, free of sirens and mysteries?

I do not know.

All I know is that any glimpse of land is more mirage than reality. We few ships on this endless sea flash code through the night. We ask each other and the stars whether we made a mistake in choosing not to winter in safe havens. The ice is packing, screeching as it collides and closes in with the sky until our sails will be torn, our masts broken, and I will have landfall –

either on the rocks, the ice or the ocean floor.

Agape

There are no windows here,

or, if you prefer, all are windows.

Continuous glass, crystal walls –

airy barriers between the inside and out.

 

Telephone, in the back room, by the lamp.

A new voice in the receiver;

sounding like Christmas when he was young.

 

(I am wholly undeveloped; my arms

are still reaching for the surface.)

I am glad I am not here alone.

 

Ice has been forming on the panes.

Outside it is winter, like a postcard

from family now living abroad.

I press my cheek against the glass,

if only to remind myself of their faces.

 

What are we if not a single body?

Who are we if not a bride?

When we’ve finally stepped outside,

bare feet in the melting snow, we’ll see,

there never were windows to begin with.

Outside is all we were,

all we’ll ever be.