Longing

It’s a newly discovered cavity
that yawns with startled pain
still tinged with sweet around the edges

It’s the ear that seduces the music
in its fantasy to become
the chords that echo around dreams

It’s the sky that aches
to merge with sun and earth bookends
forever cramped between

It’s the breeze that ruffles your hair
in motion long ago abandoned
yet tenderly remembered

It’s a geometric equation
a fantasy of paper lines and variables
praying for the absolution of solution

It’s the molecules of memory
that skate on currents of a brisk breeze
carrying whispers of youth and death

It’s a generous hue of twilight
a blue that lingers with excuses
just to flirt with possibilities
in a sold-out corner of soul

It’s the gap between
a nameless bottomless need
that compelled me to wrap you in my arms
and a heartless endless fear
that wrapped me in a straightjacket

It’s the aroma
of falling off a star
as you reach for heaven

It’s my century

this longing.

 

© 2006 Melissa Cross.  All rights reserved.  No part of this piece may be reproduced without the express permission of the author.