Seeking Crépusculaire

Be awake. I want to take you places.

You. The Myth. The Breath. The Lady.

There is no crucifixion in this abattoir.

-------

I want to show you how sweet the folds of wind are,

when nothing is ever lost

Float our way to Ouagadougou

To buy you indigo in the grand market

So you can dye our life that perfect hue

I’ll even give you all of Aldebaran in exchange for a kiss

But don’t tell Rohini, for she knows more than she lets on

She knows we’ll always arrive too late for Krishna’s favor

-- Invited or not, his funeral pyre is where we’ll burn our tomorrows

Or perhaps reincarnation is only a fetish for you

Though I claim it’s my blood’s only wish

And if I must return, let me be a collie and you my collar

You will always let me know -- who I really belong to

Oh, I’m sure I’ll grow weary of your antidisestablishmentarianism

But whether your church fits on the leaves of a strawberry

Or swims deftly within your womanhood

You are loved -- when only loss seems to have endurance

I promise, nothing is merely nebulous in our new world

even the colloquial pronunciation of the kingdom’s name

Where the streets hold jubilant signs of dancing

when your words start sweet

But with a hemorrhaging tango, those words sharpen as they go

And I see your wounds are deep, and mine not deep enough -- -- Yet

Such cruelty in your art, dear -- but it is -- your art

so pry loose the healing scab and cut me amazing,

I welcome your razor -- what I deserve -- for trying to fade

But the metamorphosis is closing the distance on one leg

And you can’t scream a question like “huh?” and expect grace

Absent of eloquence, in the luminous lines of your lips

Our sins are still so ephemeral

Then why, pray tell, is love fond of exclusivity?

Oh, the codswallop of the whole present situation

Is the only thing standing between you and me

Is you and me

Lady, we needn’t heed those traitors, we could slip into onomatopoeia

Where our kindred stories percolate in the minds of babes

It’s a dream-like murmuration of that we have created

A verbal map to transmogrify our fleeting connection

There the edges of our loves are riparian

Keeping the flood of doubt in the river’s throat

Saving the villagers the cost of enchantment

And the divvying up of our liquid assets

I have gratitude for our every interrupted breath

And I will not readily make an enemy of serendipity

So come, this is the apotheosis, our treasure to be claimed

But my hands are clumsy, my words higgledy-piggledy

Thus I may not be your best tour guide

But no tour guide will ever love you more

We are merely desiring a goddess softly in the storm

She sleeps in the cleft, laid bare in forgiveness

That is our one true place to live, where all is verdant

And splendidly open to you without fear

We claim now

We are here

We are crépusculaire

--- Kevin Cummings