I, Clockwise

Back pressed against metal Sick blue light kissed my skin, breathless The heavy solemn clockwork of your heart pulsed beneath my palm I dreaded the 8 AM departure that would ruin it all So I took what I could, listening I woke and saw the moon Haloing your face Just like a clock, measuring the moments Measuring me And your hands moved mechanical, Patient, unstoppable, slow and deliberate in their path Toward the center of my reality. It was 6 AM And I was like a traveler Wandering without purpose No direction And no light to guide the way No pinpoints against the vast and lonely darkness Where the only sound was the echo of my footsteps And so Nothing could soothe the raw ragged ache Or touch the bruised abyss I had become Not without triggering a chain reaction A thousand desert days passed One by one I cradled the vicious burning circle of the sun Safe within my palm I saw the path of my life traced on the back of a swallow Circling higher and higher Racing the sun And I used the back of a black scorpion as a mirror To scry my lover’s face. And you were not there I would learn to laugh again To let my petals fall To read my destiny in the vast clockwork of the stars To tie the wind in a lover’s knot To see diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood And learn to love--- Without pain.