The Pane of Moonlight

Full winter moon
so far from summer and you
but the light and night are much the same
as I wake to your passionate kisses

There was a pane of moonlight on my bed
and a presence in the room
which had slipped somehow in from summer
flying from a cold and cruel night
where I hear passing footsteps
crunch by in brilliant snowlight

Kiss me
I remember I said in summer
and your penumbra of black hair descended
to put your mouth on mine
to offer your little tongue
as my head and heart were enveloped
in the darkness of your kisses

I see you turn your chin up
And ofer your very center
then you are quickly up and ready to run again

There’s blood on your bed you said

Then I feel the slipping highway going blue
beneath us as we drive on into evening
and the golden grain gone copper green
undulant before a red-streaked and dying sun

Again you are in the distance
one hand on hip the other working at your art
blue blouse crimson skirt yellow baseball cap
gilded grass and lowering sun
and in the distance dun colored hills
empurpled mountains and violet shadow
dissolving from black line and smudge
to pool between the trees in the last of the light
your favorite time of day

I saw this in the pane
of cold moonlight cast upon my bed
and then exhausted from the work of memory
dropped back into the slipping dream
that always paces a step behind
that of its dark sister