Dan Enache Poet Free verse

Dusk with Bells of Ice

Dusk with Bells of Ice

We leaned our shoulders against a dusk with no edges and no name,
and we're as cold as a mouth filled up with nothing but bells of ice,
what cure could that promised return be, sworn only in dreams, never in flesh,
a river of ash flows backward toward a spring we no longer remember.

Useless to count the ashes, useless to wash the anchor of stars with moon-water,
we braid ourselves into ropes of heavy smoke rising from useless words,
and we bind our temples with wire of melted lead, so the cure won't leak out.

I often wonder who else, besides us, still speaks to the night
through collapsed wells about ships that never actually sank,
who still carries a blind and permanently freezing compass in his pocket,
and who would hide inside an old wardrobe, among moldering coats,
just to scold the wind for the wrong road it showed us last night.

We curl into ourselves like a moth circling its own dying flame,
with feathers of ash growing from our shoulder blades instead of wings,
with little bells sewn over our eyelids, so we can hear the world without watching it burn,
and we dream of the child from the story who counts the stars backward, so time might turn around,
and falls silent, because any word spoken now would shatter the mirror of the night.

You, fox of wax, roll silently before us,
you train yourself in a frozen puddle, bare-legged up to the ankles,
as if we were drifting through a dream with no witnesses, not even a shadow to recognize us,
stay like that a little longer, your forehead in the light, let me watch you slowly burning,
like a candle forgotten on the doorstep, and let the pity rise in me like a tide that no longer knows its shore.

♡Like0

Share Poem

---

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment