All day long on
a long day’s journey
south to Cartagena,
through lonely hills
and empty roads
and sheets of April rain,
I thought about your hands,
the ones you fear
look just like a man’s.
And wondered if you knew
that in my eyes your
hands are wings, your
hands are lips.
and sometimes flames
and sometimes roots
with ten white stalks that
burrow through the sleeping
earth in search of light.
All night long a
black wind slammed
against the house in
which I slept and threads
of rain the color of slate
hissed against the window
near my bed.
In the morning
in clear blue light
I rose from dreams
of thorns and snow,
to see pink jasmine bloom
outside the window,
to hear the songs of birds
in the throats of hyacinths,
and feel the petals tumble
from my own mouth
like prayers,
into your hands.
© 2012 J.M. Keating