Masked, I waltz
with a masked stranger
– tempo rubato –
and he has no hold on me
and I have no hold on him
but our shared contour,
our shared love of the dance.
+ + +
I rolled your love tight
into a pillow for sleep,
and what I felt
beneath my cheek
was not the soft down
of a warm eider nest,
but the wings of geese longing
for flight.
+ + +
Parted lovers
cannot pull each another
from their hearts, not
if they have been lovers,
not thieves.
Dormant taproots
remain, await
different climates,
different suns.
