Fallen Sea Star
The chilly North Pacific:
we build a fire for the moths,
a lamplight. Their wings, angry
with flames. Sky: dim and small.
In your standing stillness, you are
an old clock
that has run out of chimes.
The small hours of the past,
a fossil, a nerve. I hand you a flask.
You say: ‘August is dying.
The stones are cold.’ In your hand,
a dead sea star. Summer bronze
burned into your skin. Your eyes,
moist black pearls.
Along the horizon, dark fog
is an oil slick floating against the sky’s
gray wall. Your silhouette, solitude,
the wind’s nimble stitching of your hair.
You say: ‘Memories are wounds
infected with melancholy,
that push the past deeper into ruins’
—the old houses sold, the Village
demolished. To dust.
You ask: ‘Why did you leave?’
I answer: ‘There is nothing left
to remind me to remember.
After the bricks fell and shattered,
the villagers became anxious’
You reply: ‘Trepidation is God’s
offering. Listen! There’s no rush
to reach the future’ — a turnpike
of unraveled lives, sun-bleached ghosts,
pale, tired.
All night long moths fly into the light,
into the stars, the flames. The wind stirs
their powdery ashes.
Body against body,
there is deep silence between us.
The waves break. The future rolls in,
disconnects the past.
The sea star falls from your hand.
Make a wish.
----------------------------------------------
from my fourth book:
‘The Translator’ (Transcendent Zero Press)
“Rattle” was first published in ‘Orion headless’
Copyright © Dah Dahlusion | Year Posted 2016
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