Fall Lines

Fall Lines

Send me a letter by midnight.

Have your words swirl around my feet

as we dance across the moonlit lake.

Watch as ink cascades off the rocks

so when I leave,

black footprints are all that remains.

Do it on a chilly night

so I’ll have nothing but your pages to wrap around me.

Wander on broken stanzas

through sunrise and sunsets

hit question marks

and trail off to ellipses

until stars rain down like exclamation marks.

And when the tide pulled in,

a trail of quotation marks revealed,

they led in spirals around the wayward side

of grammar mistakes

that suddenly stop in the midst of a.

Sentence.

And when they finally came to their epilogue,

I came across an enchantress,

who called herself a poet,

willing to strike a bargain.

Her golden flowing locks reminded me

of your own waves;

how they rise and fall.

I don’t need to speak to hear your gracious roars

or see how the light reflects off you so majestically.

The tides crash into each other like applause.

Your harp plays with the hopes of enchanting the moon,

sending me in your direction.

You are the fall line.

Streams flow through your veins.

Dripping from one edge to the other.

As I get closer, I see the sharp curves

that ward others off.

I swim towards the current,

free my limbs

and dive under.