pickles and chocolate

When a red moon rises,
and the world is blown away
by thunder crashing through
the taste of burning leaves and sleeping feathers
stirring ripe in summer wind -
stirring in my breath -

Then last late October sky floats
(willingly at last)
to its eternal rest
and all is silent now - at last.

When angry lightning drags its fingernail
across a barren firmament,
when July winds (incense and chamomile)
blow hot and no less distant than the summer sky
forever searing red the palm of my cold heart;

When all this memory turns to madness, madness
into unforgiving dust, and I am
but a shell cast by the sea - no more
or less than is meant to be -
I’ll find this stirring in my breath
(whispers of some crystal palace black against
a blacker sky), eternal
fire burning in
the air, my lungs, one quiet night.

My heart will find you then
and claim you
as its own, just as it did
one summer night so long ago...

You take my hand, we hit the sky
on burning winds laced thick
with sands of memory;
be waiting, sweet, that July night
when some soft silver moon glows crimson
and your gentle world is swept away...