We move, gently down the slope, a slip of a boy, a girl with lots of hair. We flit through the magical noon–bees & butterflies, thrushes & swallows, tall grasses shaking their fat stalks, the placid stream stagnating near the frog. We watch the sky fall to puddles, the black road on its journey, the silver river wandering into trickling shallow streams & waterfalls, & we fear the wind’s loud laughter, the way it’s mood changes & the darkness it hoards. The girl kisses her knees, waiting for the boy to slip into her room–the high tower–a prayer on her lips, & loosen her from the chair, into the painted sun. The boy learns to lose pebbles on window panes, pick flowers, swim drains, pass through walls & hide in the shadow of old trees. We leave nothing behind us as we rub our lamp, say the name & wait for all the hells to come. He weaves her tresses into ladders of daffodils, breathes fire into the old fireplace & burns her skin black with soot so that we can be one when the moon flees the dew & the fireflies are shy. We move, swift, the wind on our heels; the barking sea at the shore, waiting, the paper boat hoisted on the first wave & fire light into the hungry sky.
We fall into each other, our mouths capturing the tender absence of words, the finite untangling of our limbs, the wilderness growing with skeletons. We steal awe from the aurora borealis & the girl with much hair comes as bright as too much fire & the boy slips away with the wind to the bottom of the shore, where he watches her rise far into the purple dusk, his hands wiping the dust from the seat of his shorts, his eyes wet with raindrops & on his chest, a single follicle.
📷: pixabay
©Osahon, 2020.
