I am born in each dawn
of waking beside you, silent
as morning’s birth, earth’s genesis.
I want nothing; simply to explore
the tapestry of who we were,
what we have become. At the window
a finch clears his throat, jasmine
nods, weary after night’s last bloom.

Your shoulder is cool
to my palm. Soft in sleep, your lips
answer my fingers. I search for a sign:
the quickened heartbeat, the stir of daybreak
against your thigh, a smile to journey
from mouth to eyes.

We’ve swallowed youth, left vicissitudes
behind; forgiven our ineptitudes as allegories,
revel now in clean linen, Santana winds
to carry our stories. I want you inside me,
an artery flooding with life, a knife
that sharpens itself on my bones.

We begin with light, embrace
through arrogant sunsets, seize
the mystique of night in our hands.
What’s silvered is simply reflection –
the spark in each of us
refusing to go out.


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Copyright ©2000 by Heather Long. All rights reserved.
Second Place, Webstatic Poetry Contest, First Half 2000
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Music on this page – Dance of the Kindred Souls – ©Bruce DeBoer