Collapsing Stars
Speak to me in iambic pentameter
and weave Shakespeare sonnets with Milton anecdotes.
Read me riddles and rhymes divulged
over uneaten dinners and swing-sets with broken chains.
Allow me to lip-synch to your ballad of broken piano-fingers
and I will lay next to you in the dew grass and smoke memories
wrapped in Marlboros.
Paint anagrams for me in the colors of
raindrops and oil spills.
Send moonlight messages in the austere silence
of silhouettes and shadows puppeteered
by flashing fingers and flickering wicks.
Dance with me in the musky autumn aroma
of crackling, symphonic leaves
and I will smash angels into frozen oceans
and lay breathless beneath you and a blanket of snow.
Together we will dodge the juxtaposition
of an angry bonfire affection,
and let the consonants bound ahead of us
as we lay beneath oak trees and dream of laughter.
Lie to me in stanzas of forgotten rhyme schemes
and fill my ears with cotton and Dr. Seuss until
the syllables of make-believe words contort
themselves into definitions.
Play me a harmony of grace-notes that last
as long as a hummingbird’s heartbeat
and drum me a cadence that filters up
from the ground like dust-motes in sunlight.
Allow me to lay 3/8ths of an inch from your embrace
and feel the dove wing kiss of your pulse
against my snow-cap knees.
Permit me to take one last look at the
collapsing stars above, to take in the startling brilliance
of a beautiful thing that consumes itself,
and I will be content to close my eyes forever
and let you be my supernova.
Allow me one more peek,
one more snapshot of clairvoyance,
and I will let your fingers tangle with my hair once more.
I will let your ear rest upon my stereophonic heart
and your hand to settle delicately on my concave waistline.
I will permit your butterfly touch to read the Braille
engraved in the crease of my elbow,
and your quivering fingers to slide along
the skin of my forearm, smooth as fiberglass.
Chase me with arms wide open
and a daunting smile on heavy-set lips.
Fill me with sweet connotations and lullabies,
and sweep the denotations from my grasp with gentle
whispers and caresses.
Allow me a glimpse of what is good, and true,
and honest,
and I will float forever without looking up
and wondering why.
Speak to me, dear,
--together we will race to the ends of time,
and find that nothing exists but the warm imprint
left by two bodies in the dew grass.
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