Sanctuary of Dust and Wings

I lie beneath the tempestuous expanse of rusted stars.

The bench creaks beneath my ribs like a forgotten hymn.

The night folds around me like a velvet autopsy.

My tattered mattress of yesterday’s layered news

bleeds inked elegies into my spine.

The wind rehearses its sermon through the ribs of the city,

 and I, a pilgrim of pavement and bench,

wait for grace in the flutter of your wings

a transport crocheted from the eyelids of sleeping children.

Your body, a compass pointing toward the marrow of stars,

guides your descension from moonlight and memory,

spiraling down from the last warmth of a streetlamp’s dying breath.

You make purchase as a soft apocalypse on my chest,

where dreams still pulse like fish trapped beneath ice.

 Oh, how I envy your freedom,

 your soft defiance against the geometry of Nature’s hunger.

Yet…

Together we watch the city exhale its indifference as lights blink out like tired gods.

We shiver together as two ghosts rehearsing the choreography of survival.

No accident, this communion.

I, costumed in grief like a clown exiled from laughter,

and you, of shared heartbeat wrapped in powdered silence,

a mime mourning the extinction of touch.

We are jesters of the night.

Our stage cracked sidewalks and park benches.

Our audience the shadows that know not how to applaud.

Still…

We dance.

We rise on wings made of memory ash,

mapping constellations no telescope will ever find.