Catastrophe Jones

The birds outside my window
are not new
having made their nest in the porch light
for seasons now
ever returning
unmindful of the snake below
perhaps because they know
he is an empty threat
all staring eye
and no fang
and I am grateful for it
because their assured homebuilding
gifts me with a song I never new I missed
until spring comes
and I hear it once again

He reaps what others sow
when he plays the tune
that only the ghosts can hear.

The leftover lives that others spilled
at his feet were not his blood to bear
and yet,
and yet.

I listen to that music
and can find

nothing

but a command to peace,

nothing

but a desire for rest,

nothing

but a hope where hope had never before been allowed to be.

I listen to his music
and can find

nothing

but gentle calm and familiar warmth.

Let him banish me,
let him ruin me,
let him have me,
let him anything me —

it is worth it
for a single note from his lips.

Spring’s ache;
a thicket of greenscent,
of wild, vining delights.

I dreamt of you
in a bower of thornless wild rose,
in a bedding of fragrant mosses,
in a twine of budding buttercup
and bittersweet.

Fool’s love,
that which comes in heady,
perfumed and sudden,
a stag’s charge,
all trembling fingers
and dropped-jaw wet panting.

The cry I’ll drive from you
shall rouse the birds to flight,
pulse like the thunder of beating wings, frantic;

your animated slick-lipped howl
shall be the music of midnight and morning,
caught in both sun and moonbeam,
the two of us only motes,
spinning
endlessly
around one another

until we fall
to dust once more.