Twilight

For Rose Marie

Sometimes,
when the tales and the regrets and you
cease my slumber's intermissions,

when dear night steals my thoughts from me,
and my mind finds the slice of peace and death
so often denied through the battles
of thoughts and tears,

sometimes, the winds bite
through the walls and blankets
to find my apprehensive skin,
to laugh and mock my lack of you.

(perhaps the wind knows,
having tasted of your skin
and mine,
lays its gnawing blows
upon us both,
urging us to find the dying warmth
of our doused fire

Do you feel the teeth of the wind in your sleep?)

And yet,
when the memories come for their reckoning
their fangs glistening like glass,
baring themselves to devour my heart
like Prometheus' liver.

when I reach with hands too shaken to grasp,
too angered to hold,
too frightened to clutch
at arms outstretched to help my fall,

when each drop of rain,
a word from a song,
a note from a symphony,
falls, staccato and stiff,
upon us miles apart,

I recall the curve of your hair,
not quite red,
not quite brown,
dancing as the air danced through it,
and laugh to myself,
at myself,
for losing the little piece of Heaven
I once had.

James T. Hsiao