Once I formed a circle threaded through with lines of light,
shellacked to burnish blue and gold. I was where,
if you had pocket change and yearning, you’d make
your way in pairs toward my shape-wait, sugared
with desire, until the gate would open and below
your navel, a starling murmuration would take flight.
You’d let yourselves be lifted, let what you could not show
below release and twine through hair and hand like moonflowers,
tendril from your parted lips, from one bared shoulder.
I made slow revolutions, circumnavigating as if I were a tide
of moonlight and your mouths could river into estuary, flowing
sweet to salt. I’d calliope your pulse, and at the peak of turning,
pause to give perspective: rocking at the apex, you’d see your lower lives
made small, those predictable streets, their toy cars
etch-a-sketching edged perimeters, everyone intent on getting
nowhere new.
Now motionless, I have come full circle, feel only insect urges
in the August night, a trellis made of cricket calls, a sudden owl. Time
has shagged me wild, green vines filling all my outlines in. I obscure
those heart initials that you penknifed in my seats so long ago.
I am become a nest for mice, damp retreat for salamander, squirrel,
sometimes an eyrie for a bird of prey. Divorced from those most simple
of desires, you might be surprised you can recall the way
your flocks of birds took flight, before years seeped us both to silence,
lake below me rippling like the memory of skin when it’s first touched.
–
Featured/Upcoming in Rust and Moth, River Heron Review, SWWIM Every Day, Thimble, Carmina Magazine, The South Dakota Review, ONE ART, and Gyroscope Review, Alison Hurwitz is a two-time 2023 Best of the Net Nominee, and founder/host of the monthly online reading, Well-Versed Words. Find her at alisonhurwitz.com.
© 2024, Alison Hurwitz
Halfway Down the Stairs 