Candle

Sleepless, half-naked and thirsty beside the river, under constant moonlight, waiting to feel the final impact of the Sun. I am locked up, dents on red knuckles, tears betraying a fear I can't hide. Nose in a book, laboring to be someone, losing, regaining the world, the charitable God reminding me of the beauty of grace. Walking sideways down a Fort Worth barrio, music steadies my mind, keeps me from knocking on a random door. What do I fear now, but the silence of her voice, of the voice I have known, the siren that drifts me down to the great rivers, searching for the tree of life? And I fear that you, my love, were my tree of life, in my own strange way. The vastness of you, my only ocean in the universe. My delight carved into the plot of land I never had the wisdom to let lie fallow.