poem

THIS IS WHEN I SHUT MY EYES

At around three in the morning
there was a halo over everything
and your head was no exception
As the train slowed and released me onto the platform
I laid down my guitar and through the flakes
caught the horse and rider
You smiled at me with hidden hands and white teeth
and there was one of everything
1 street lamp
1 Toyota
1 of you
and
1 of me
but billions upon billions of snowflakes suspended
offered up as alms to a gentle December moon

this is when I close my eyes

I see you playing etudes on an old upright piano
with snow covered pedals
in a field of spent corn stalks
sitting on a bench stuffed with sheet music
Then the fox appears
that half-hunter with it's patchy coat
It stops to smell the small of your back
then cuts a crooked figure directionless
deaf to your music
in search of anything that moves

this is when I open my eyes

You had not moved an inch
a statue made of prairie wind
still waiting, waiting, waiting
to show me the place where I would sleep soundly
near the fire and your dreaming dog
the one full of secrets