Somnambulist

             Silence is a synesthetic sense —
                           she synanaesthetizes us
                           into that soundless spaceless nearly analgesic place
                           where the static of the beating of
                           the heart rises and falls

                                                                  and falls
                                                                                             and falls

             and falls where things grow (in the place where nothing grows),
                          from rock bottom she found a way to grow,
                          like creeping thyme in sidewalk cracks
                          she,       creeping, with time, grows —            
                          she,       in the flowers that we sow
                                                       every                
                                                       fall                     all over again

                                                       every fall       
                                                                                              I fall    
                                                                                                                                                                     all over again                          
                          will I one day grow as                              satin                          
                                                                                              as tear-watered and sweet-nectared and bridal?

             it is winter and I —

I see you in the darker color of dark       
                          before it hides                              outside my helpless vision
                                                                                     in a ghostly game of tag;

                                        you are the trailing shadow of a still unrealized premonition.

             I see you in the shadow              cast by tomorrow’s unbegun light;    
                                                                           I see you in vision            (I see you in light)
                                                                          in blind sleep and            in reckless R.E.M.,
                                                                          you are my slow     waves and my fast —

             You are the force that                 unincited,
                                                                           animates blind eyes in blinder sleep

            You are the waves                        that ripple grass
                       in wind and                                          in the still         
                                                                                        still         
                                                                                                            and still 

                          the still thawed earth now teems with thyme, with creep, with
                          every living thing that seeks, unseeing, to be seen —

                          shrinking-away is a reflex:  
                           it is the squirm; it is the warmth of life that haunts me —
                                                                                                  every uninvited force.

                                                 Breathing your breath, I call on you —  
                                                               my ancestor,
                                                               my shadow             
                                                                                                    my uninvited and
                                                                                                    my always-here (who left long ago);

                                                                           quiet
                                                                           the static heart and still the pleural wind 

                                                              but then, the voice                         in the voiceless place:
 

             I am your quiet but                     
                                                                                                     you are my loud

                                                                                                                               be careful, child:

                                                                                                     if you go

                                                                                                     chasing the spaceless too long
                                                                                                                                    you will                     
                                                                                                                                                 one day

                                                                                                                                                                           catch up