paraliminal

9 dreams, minus mine, hush, 9
questions confined to us. 9 ghosts
unquestioned, their posthumous
premonitions fill my light
heart, wend their way through the weight of
the wait, gradually, towards
sudden.

silent shift,
unseasonal last frost - windows patterned as if as
if the day wept before beginning
and the cold held onto this intricate grief.

low dread-flush through me; i flex against my roomy bones.
dis em body awareness of body turns like a wave collapsing back
to its underside - an ache resurfaces - something wedged in the watery
floor flips over and up - set like a white cap upset, set
like a gem in a gem colored throat.

i seek softness beneath harsh appearance. perhaps
brought at the outset, and placed there when i'm not
looking, for and by me, put and waiting, tethered lightly
at the ankle of futured need to hope
and seek within the dark hour,
holding its breath, and mine, and All Breath
of spirit, at once suspended somewhere
between near
and now.


you are restless; i hear this
in my skin and cannot shut out the input.
your phantom-scratch relentless and cross,
all across my captive flesh speaking back
through the impact of time over dreams
and questions and cat lives,
9.