Now

I’m harder now than when they knew me.

That yielding woman, blown this way and that, has calloused.

The callow body that unbridled ardor, confidently working the reins

Is now hollow, softer on the outside, but harder within.

I am green, ripe and rotten. At once childlike, mature and old soul

Rolled into this unbendable shell.

Some sweetness is gone, drained and strained through the sieve of time.

Yet the wine of this fruit is delicious. Culled from bruised berries of my body,

Bitter berries of my being, 

When mulled, it will warm and satiate. 

The buoyant body, I’m afraid, its brazen unawareness have flown,

Pigeons through a town square at twilight, shadows over cobblestone.

Children skip toward warm houses following dinner’s scent. Couples murmur

As they turn huddled corners in trenchcoats and heels,

While an old man in a herringbone cap throws scraps of bread,

Hopeful for the pigeons, his company,

To return and eat and coo and share the nightfall.

But they will not return tonight. The wind turns cold.

He rises, a litter of crumbs scuffling beneath his feet.

I ask the mirror: Am I the child, the lover, or the elder?

You are the dusk, I reply. Seaming day and night on evening's edge.

When the sun falls degrees below the horizon,

You hold the night while releasing the day. You stand vigil for the old,

Hear the whispers of the lovers, and beckon the babes to safety.

You are the explosion of color in the west, the stark bleakness of the east. 

And you are the un-blackened darkness that surely ensues.

The dusk? I repeat, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

As if I didn’t know. Yes, love, the dusk. For with you, I say,

I do not miss the sun, nor do I long for the moon.