Child in the Road. Cindy Savett

      in this theater of roses

      I am covered by my nakedness

      terrible living of the day

      from the underbrush

      a hesitancy

      pours

      one step beating lights below this platform

      I dance through an unhinged night

      where the breaking occurs

      dread in the aborted word

      mouth

      with a slate tongue

      shard

      for the master of bared faces

      nameless

      you have pinned your burnt lips to the morning inscription

      spilt vowels from pigeon wings

      fractured

      and come home with salt and blood thread

      from the absence

      I close the gate to my children

      their stomping and blessing

      latch on shattered glass

      whisper red mornings

      cast stones in ash

      coiled and glazed at my feet

      bridge voices in the water

      I am your dark

      kiss

      the creation

      of seas where the dead

      float

      upright

      tilted mouths to scream

      the winter grave

      of night swinging through your hands

      an unmarked

      heredity of the hard-thrown flood

      the absence of origin

      lone player

      singing on the trumpet’s edge

      beside my night

      to hone the winter prayer

      what was between us

      was a demand for names

      when the warmth of blood

      of wild dogs

      was the dream of a dance

      with sirens heavens

      and the clotted leaves

      and the clearing

      mutations

      between my fingers

      over and over

      hands red in repentance

      tonight’s wings

      are blue

      first among voices

      hovering by the night stalk

      meager boundary

      between us

      stamp of the foot

      and here I lie

      thick dust and the night rhymes

      in the ruins of each

      spitting tongue

      parched accent of the hard dirt

      were you to believe

      in junction of light then

      I would die

      the thousandth time

      along the way I dropped you

      and you lay

      apart from creation

      midday sun

      severs

      my tongue

      you reach to the birthplace

      of gods

      along the way

      I have misplaced you among red tulips and the mist

      surrendered dayfall

      to white breath

      ritual of circles

      I hollow your name

      above faces in the stones and dirt

      blood-drops

      near the open cage

      snow harvest

      my arms

      know you

      gray stars

      frail hand of god

      on the buried

      cup

      in this terrible

      chair

      my summer hands

      touch your lips

      abide the early fog

      wasp without

      her nest

      ferry

      of death

      I dig in the ruins

      for absence

      ignite your canceled breath

      again

      I have forgotten

      your face a mask of the wary night

      in millions

      of grains

      of sand

      II the sifter

      Daybreak haunts

      across from where the shining lies

      casting

      on watersand

      canvases of block and paint

      swearing away the memory of early dusk

      resonant blue

      element of the dark

      I beat the steel frame

      gate unlatched

      I exist for the breath-pause

      dug-down words of the dark

      for the doors that crack

      when the keys

      splatter in porous wind

      I cover myself in blue

      night endless call

      to my bones

      I lay by the fire stone

      hide the unburied dead

      in my throat shrieks the beast

      the shuttered dark

      flees behind my back

      I am the sifter of soundless

      echoes

      brushed with dirt

      and crumbling

      bits of names that stuff my mouth that wound

      my tongue on the falling

      scent of sky

      edging towards the blue

      I set the night against

      my ribs

      tilt of heavy

      rain