the walk home

I land on the middle of my feet
gripping the dew drenched grass
with toes bent, tendons taut.
Heels drive downward
clenching at the knee, calves
quads and glutes flexing and firing off.
Every step is a surging thrust
as my hips work furious, legs a flash.

The overnight moisture on the green stretch
kisses the dirt off my bare feet.
The odd protest of a thorned bramble
is crushed beneath the callouses of my soles.
One arm holds firm a laptop bag
strapped and creaking to my right
as the other pumps piston-like
reaching forward and stroking back
with the blade of an open hand
as though through water.

The dress pants rolled up over my ankles
whisper swish swish, faster and faster
as the terrain changes
and thirsty asphalt soaks up
the damp memory of my footprints
left behind like nostalgic notes of a former lover.
My heart beats on a countdown
ticking faster and faster
like a caged bird fluttering its wings
maddened by whispered promises of freedom
in the taste of distant winds.

For an instant, I see the card board cut out
of a passenger on a bus driving by.
I barely notice
weaving in and out of dark shadows
cast by the overflowing fullness of the moon
peering like a pale Apollo through a rippled film of cloud.
As the moon's pocked and pitted face
reflects the terrible serenity of the sun's rays
so too is a refraction of that light
glimpsed upon the mirror of the clouds
and as they catch the Sun's gaze
the whole mass-like threadbare cotton
bursts through with pearls of color
perforated with metallic hues of purples and blues
like a dark rainbow iris around the moon's dilated pupil.

Mirror upon mirror
the sun gazes upon the moon
the clouds gaze upon the earth
each deafening in their promises to one another.
As I hurtle toward the silence
trying to outrun the echo of old oaths

***

to be cont'd