standlake

I took the lead: three boys and I
​intoxicated by the dawning headiness of spring,
​our footsteps borne into the rough timbre
​of history, of ripening forbearing
​and reserve and aged discontent. yet here
​we were unsaddled, unbridled, running 
​with limbs of gold into an abstract sky --

​It was dark by the time we collapsed
​a writhing mass of empty legs and 
​arms and sweat-traced smiles
​and rapture. we were a knot of easy
exultation, our souls on their knees
listening to the tender sermon
​of dying light, renouncing flimsy sins
​we committed with ignorance held
high on the wings of childhood.

we go running, now, still, as far as we can,
​rushing, a monstrous, silent current
brothers at my heel, we bleed 
​gruesome juice from the fruits and the rind
​that suffer our heavy tread.
I hold their hands, the hands which fall from mine
​with slickness like melting ice
as we work up a sweat, and then --
​
​they slip away, one by one, rigid gasping
​ruling their chests and their minds, 
​tearing them from us, from the gale
​of us - too weak to keep up the chase. 
​only I can complete the race 
​and lie with the moonlight like water
​in aching streams down my face,
​uttering warped confessions 
​into the apathy of night. 

​time passed as the tide
​erases the callouses of the shore.
​tonight we'll lie alone in silence
​drawing blankets around ourselves in 
hollow embrace. the ridges 
​of my soles will drink the 
​starlight and think of springtime 
​and the steady pulse of our 
​feet on the soil,
and my heart will dream of them,
​with faith,
endlessly.