Killing moon slices
concrete into light,
shadow. Morning glories
have folded; their sly demure petals
emit a deep purple
against fences. Grass blades bend
sharply this way and that,
a thousand thorns
piercing May.

I wait behind dogwoods,
their colors silent
in the dark.
I know you will come.
My pockets contain
my hands, keeping them
still and white
at the knuckles.

Telephone lines: cords
loosely holding houses together.
I imagine them tightening,
splintering wood, breaking stone
to be as one, the rhetoric
of love sliding down
walls, facades opening
to reveal depths
of emptiness.

I know you will come.
I know as surely as summer
insects follow Arcadian rhythms,
sing in blackness.
I sing in blackness as the moons
in your eyes open
to my figure sheltering
under dying elms,
the figure with jagged leaves
for hair, burning knuckles
for tenderness,
razor moonbeams for feet.

I know you will come.