Until I Wake
by Adrienne
I feel your fingers in the patchwork of this quilt
as plainly as I felt them burning on my cheeks.
And I am still off balance. This mattress beneath me
might as well be a Platonic ideal.
Nothing could have prepared me for you.
Already, where my pen falls, your name falls also.
I am possessed by a name- a name- a name-
a name that I have known for scarce three hours!
What it has to do with a ghost chopping heads is beyond me,
but what it has to do with a face... a pair of hands...
Those inscrutable dark-hearted eyes full of a hope
that can find no voice for some long-cherished wish
find a voice in me even as I struggle to find
a pitiful strangled breath with which to speak.
Nothing could have prepared me for you.
