#inanotherdirection

what has happened an alternate version // of what you had in your head // you think // about the sun cutting through // the thickness of the forest // you think // about the six inches of snow lying undisturbed // soft and quiet outside of your mother’s front door // you think // of explosions and smoke // gas masks and bomb shelters // mortars and mortal wounds // as you lay dying // in a field far from home // you think // I will not allow this to happen // never again // I cannot bear it // but you let go // to feel the full body shake // your grief has become.

your spirit lights spun a web of halos straight from the mouth of autumn in what might have been a past life you drank in entire whorls of time, while i painted the walls of your temple with my dreams, a lover's last sunrise we swam in a rhythm of ephemeral tides flaring like a match-stroke to the world, echoing through labyrinthine caves, a slow incandescence breathed slowly were you there, too, or did i dream it? a tempestuous sea too calm for my love, no quarter reserved for this coral heart the miles have turned to blown dust at the wind's whim, a heavy silence filled our tongues like holy sacraments i have seen you a thousand different ways save my own reflection; it cast no shadow you became the desert now and forever where light is dimmest above my horizon we are beyond reach there, in that sanctuary where celestial bodies aligned with us-- for a breath's length, we were the universe