Your World

Footsteps on wet sand half filled with brackish water,

Walking towards me and away.

I squat down and scoop up a handful of grains and broken shells And sift them through my gnarled fingers.

My years make a small hill beside the Mediterranean.

I sit on the stone lip of a water fountain, to one side.

The child, confident in the always of your love.

Leaps toward your distant arms and miraculously, just in time.

You scoop him out of the air, whirling around together.

Smiles and kisses, hugs and laughing.

When you pulled me toward the hills and valleys of your dark world I fell to you like Icarus, melting wax and arms flailing.

I tried to memorize you, you mesmerized me.

I breathed your raven coolness, exhaled your sundance.

The constellation of you beat against the windows of my soul,

I ran to you, I ran away, I was paralyzed.

Your seas lapped gently at my dream, eroding it in shimmering vapors. Now I wander through your eden lost.

Somewhere between love and death.