Tou

by A. Diao Lavina

Invariably the rain falls as though it had waited.

Sad bones reaching into corners of rooms,

a pensive moon attentive to the drumming of silver wings,

windows creaking on tarnished hinges, fingers

of a heart improvising, its flutter syncopated.

The room fills with your absence.

I touched, like glass, your absence.

Its muted chimes rolled once, then waited.

The hallway clock counted syncopated

minutes begging scarce sanctuary in the rooms.

A strange memory rests in my fingers.

Sometimes the way you look at me brushes like small wings.

Secretly when you're here the days grow wings,

we speak little of absence,

forget the childlike clutch of its fingers.

Our days are the nudge of morning light that waited

to dance like drunken dervish in our rooms,

waking birds of luck into song syncopated.

The rest is silence, syncopated

by the mad rush of trains and hover of metal wings

around our house, thunder in our rooms

where deeply sleeps your absence

and tangled in its hair, I waited

tuned nightly to the ticking clock's rusty fingers.

I sleep cupping your name in my fingers.

My dreams breathe syncopated.

My waking stumbles over daily spaces which waited,

anticipating words to hatch, their wings

unfurling fire, their eyes and teeth the gnarly absence

seeping from far edges of patient rooms.

I chase your days reeling in distant rooms,

trace the slow shift of stars with deliberate fingers,

linger over pages in your absence.

The world hums on its axis, syncopated,

as these words dawn on steady wings,

lithe but for a time they waited.

Cloaked with words in tireless rooms I have waited

until the sky's tender fingers lowered you down on sunset wings,

as the song of absence lining the seams of our lives syncopated.