fall will come and it will be beautiful

these days i spend my mornings

summoning life from this earth.

i pat the soil with my rain hands.

i shake the laughter loose from

the curtains. i tame the sunlight

with the soles of my feet.

these are the words that i sleep with.

earth, come here, you dying breed

of a woman, and give me light.

these days i pull the waves from

the sea so the moon can breathe.

i love you, your falling days,

with all of my aching good heart.

after all, you built the ocean

that i will one day drown in.

until then i spend my mornings

peeling the flesh from the orange

sky and offering it up to my hungry

mother. we have an agreement:

the sky, the summer, me. they tell me

that death is not easy. they tell me

that they do it all the time.

and then i say make me over

in your image, your warm suns,

your bluepeach waters. summer,

i want love everywhere, all the time.

i want the moonlight to know

she can dance. this, of course,

is impossible. this is the song

i sleep with. this is hope.

and the falling sun says

hope will not bring back the summer,

nor the love of a thousand hands.

but she will come.