Skeletons Entering Paradise

Published in Everyone's a fucking poet! 1995

You ran away from your own skin
& stumbled over mouthless crowds, buildings 
with geometric façades & an emphasis on
urbane cosmetics that made you itch & 
you made your escape to the heart of the map
of my space.  

I was born a structure of bones,
nicely fit, no longer soft to the touch,
almost human.  I hid my bare
essentials with books & a past that I
made up as I went along, progressing 
with haste in the art of storytelling,
skeletal as I was, & full of spine but no
flesh to back it up, to fill out the curves
of discontinuity that summarize the
information on a face.  

You dashed into my language field & stood
at the horizon holding a sign marked
SILENCE.  I scraped my skull clean
searching for an answer, finally throwing
up my hands to pull storm clouds from
the sky, the cover of darkness for fear
of the unknown.  

Your shadow stripped away,
I saw you naked on the concrete plane.
You took it for response & moved 
towards me, surrounding yourself with
everything you love or hate.
I thought myself an arrow & flew
in your direction.  I thought myself an angel
& landed, divine.  We danced on pins
balancing atop the city, the network
of faces, flesh & bone.