Unhealed

sitting by the window,
making dark deals with the shallow twilight,
venomous promises,
that sear purple welts upon my naked arms;
while the half-light rustles Rumi’s clove scented words;
I will the wind to open a page,
a random vial of bitter antidote,
his robes whirl white against the glowing slate,
drunk on the wine of an ingrown truth;

but mystic water cannot drown
the endless thirst of a ripped out throat;
so he pours it into fifteen bronze bowls,
his feet skimming their tones,
a jal-tarang of buoyant rapture;
I stare at his wing tipped soles,
waiting for the bruises
where his toes turn over the silent waves;

he can’t negotiate with a dim hour
that is devouring the last of the sun,
cueing the ungracious night,
that lacerates those wounds
with its purple tongue,
its five-edged crystal teeth,
drawing chimeras
with granite eyes and blue poisoned veins
and scaly pink legs
dangling in circular swamps of wine;

perhaps only the new day can heal,
grinding its jaundiced sunshine
into a turmeric poultice,
scratching into my burning eyes,
the camouflaged mediocrity
of an unreal morning;
filling shapeless bags of shade
with secret talismans-
the sigh of a poem,
the lilt of a wave,
the arch of a spotless foot;
venomous deals
to haggle with
yet another toxic night.

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