poem
the mosquitoes tip-toe around me
the mosquitoes tip-toe
around me, out of habit
and knowledge—
they see me lumbering
around, around front porches
smoking and weeping
intermittently.
they hear me coming
when i am two
dreamscapes away, my
breath-rate is a pair
of golden cymbals
clashing a steady
lovesickness,
a muggy mid-morning
the crickets spend chirruping
about the coming dawn,
mosquitoes fly hungry,
breezes fill the night’s pockets
with cool change
and the hour is life-full,
as will be the next,
the next,
every hour coming and going
with its veins running blue fire,
dammed up in certain
pivotal places, space enough
for Love to be won
and lost, and wars, and wealth,
and invisible moments
waiting expectantly for sunrise
in sweltering Arkansas summer.
i have heart that
brims drumming blood,
the mosquitoes keep me company
until i can see
them clearly in the silver morning,
and thereafter
into golden daylight—
the dreaming and waking instant.
