Feather Raking

There were years with your body

without you in it —

heart going, hands and legs trembling.

There were years with your body

without you in it —

tears flowing, lemonade bittering.

There were years with your body

without you in it —

separating pain from pleasure like broken eggs.

There were years with your body

without you in it —

at a gallop or collapse, it’s all the same.

Then he called you.

Then he finally called you.

He called you, he called you.

Later, they saw you

like magicians saw you, all metal and mirror,

dragging your body to him

to suffer the sweat of his cage, the sweat of his cage.

Dragging your body to him

to suffer the sweat of his cage, the sweat of his cage.

Sadness elongates every space.

Feel the room growing too meaningless to escape.

Feel the heat of the windows, unopened and undraped.

In sodium street light, even the wild grass wants to be clover.

We stand in the field all afternoon.

Our anger breaks dumb into dance,

stomping rakes of feather and gold

in the junkyard of our joy, where songs bark chainlong 

and claim it’s him heaven’s heard,

unable to repeat the words.

But there were years with your body

without you in it.

Then he called you.

Then he finally called you.

He called you, he called you.

Later, they saw you

like magicians saw you, all metal and mirror.

In sodium streetlight —

heart going, heart going.

In sodium streetlight —

heart going, heart going,

going, going,

gone, gone, gone.

Going.

Going.

Gone, gone, gone.