Skeletons of cats arch and slink

Beneath the fat calves of resting cars

Metal pins the air alongside sweet crepe myrtle bloom

All is still and you sleep

Whilst the tongue of road wets her distance

Pools of last night’s storm gather like miniature lakes

Cold and black in shadow, the light from street lamps

Glittering off their surface and into the surround

I think of when we were unafraid

And stayed awake moving beneath the other

Slick as two seals

Your hair smelling of me

The room holding her breath

Even first light paused in our ecclipse of the other

Like rounding clock hands wrapping ever further

The steady progress of time and heartbeat, just beneath hushed surface

My pulse is a noise in my head as all else but crush of bedsheets

Like rosettes in a festival infused with pigment will

Thread color through time, remaining smooth and unbroken

Looking into your eyes I see no hint of

The eventual

Lay of land

Not far down

This still road

And isn’t that how it always plays?

A terrible and familiar piece of reflection

When the unexpected occurs, we should not be surprised

It is written in the dewy softness of this graphed moment

We take in our mouths and chew upon

Unable to imagine

The storm

Though it leaves signs of itself

Like tears against your cheek

Show themselves in moonlight