.
as if we were walking down an autumn path, dead leaves curling their toes under the flat of our feet, legs that make a slow scissor along a scrappy turning, a falling-of-things, a green to rust to falling. "as if the boats in your eyes were preparing to winter," you'd say. i'd say in a whisper, peeking treetops for waking owls, "as if a lilypad through the floorboard, green surrenders to yellow and falls." i can't find the cloth i use to clean the surface.
shining my small blue light in the gap, a crack of finding, a treasure hidden in the linted limbo of sleeping furniture dragged in off the street some time back. bent paperclip, an earring, a miniature stack of paper, a sharpened pencil. further in, or down, or under, a bent intention, a scribble, a paper apology, a songbird sleeping. "how long has she been there?" you'd ask, your brow snagged with worry, your lips pulled together like a cinch-sack with a song inside.
i sigh, standing up from a crouch to linger in the doorway. "she's always been there." you look back at the darkened gully where again there's nothing, where all that's been lost becomes invisible, translucent against the backdrop of the dust and clutter that envelops the surface of our voices like snow. i can't find it. sealed in with sharp crystals of ice, delicate, each is shaped like its own friend, its own country, you shake your head, i stop looking. i lace up my eyes like skates, sail off toward some other edge, a sunk ship rinsed in blue.
.
