kenyon

MINE

You lie there in shadow,
your body a dark hole
dug to some other level.
Slowly, I lower my hands in
like canaries.
If you respond, warm them,
send them back alive,
then I can set them free,
follow their path down into you.

But if some remark
like a tendon
sharpened on the wind of your tongue
should snag them,

I will back away
from the mouth of that opening,
chirping brightly to drown out the noise
of all those nights, years ago
before we had to dig,
before the lungs of this thing went black
and my hands, accordingly,
grew feathers.
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kenyon, circa 1997