Bill Wolak – Ⅱ

The Gift 

 

 

 

 

Stay still awhile.

Relax through the long interludes

when the extended aisles of our arms

withdraw into a paralyzed torpor.

 

There is a moment when nothing moves inside us,

when a strained exhaustion resonates throughout us,

a hushed pause that hastens our revival,

an hiatus that lulls the aching and delight

we balance between.

 

Our eyebrows are stitched together;

still I see you in the orange afterimage;

my eyes closed as tightly

as stars with ingrown light.

 

For me, you have the gift

to transform your dreams

into your presence.

 

Now you have subdued all my snakes

and I, in turn, have savored

all the aquatic spices

of your skin’s opening shudders;

I have divined the lost children scurrying

inside your forest of I’s.

 

Be still awhile

as the trance of or brief reprieve

subsides with a slow turning of keys

in the hatchet-hewn stump of the heart.