Umbra

A nightmare whistles
through the marrow
of a sleeping dancer
trembling in tangled sheets-
naked and pink in swaddled cocoon-
the bed a river of strewn books.
Hot staccoto puffs in frigid air-
butterscotch baptism; Moonrise
Priestess, rotting and green,
then reborn on a meat
hook. Blooming wombs, seeded
soil. Etched on the horizon
a pair of condors circling
ROADKILL. A lone cypress weeps.
In gloaming and fog, a lamb bleats.
Scampering cats riff on car roofs.
An agitated wind on the coughing hedgerow
grumbling an engine starts,
scattering squirrels on telephone wires.
Morning is a virgin birth,
reverie an abandoned diving bell.
Unfathomable joy; hallowed gallows.
The salty veil of ecstasy
lifted by sorrow.
Undulating ompholos and heart drum.
Diaphanous membrane memory-
an involutionary paradox;
the futility of cupping smoke eclipsed
by a swarm of orange leaves
and flickering sparrows.
Tattered dreams are winged away
by the gravity of a thousand sighs;
Wretched longing; forgotten
wish. Hidden among the pine boughs
are dew diamonds-
radiant in the shadow of wild geese.

© Zinlavu 2011. All rights reserved.