Rain Dance

When the saguaros look like many-armed devas,
second-hand givers and third-hand takers,
of retrograde light and parched tongues,
at once, believers and dispellers of lies.

Keeping track of the hours as lifetimes,
the minutes as seasons,
the passage of time by bird migration,
etching instances into your back; sides; hips.

To become a keeper of false histories,
like a ladybug learning the circumference of a leaf,
the way our footprints bring the city to the forest,
so, too, does nature encroach upon this urban landscape,
buildings for construction's sake.
lenses jutting out of silent rooftops,
spying toward the aether,
empty landscapes becoming telescopes; observatories; orreries.

When you speak only to the corners of the room,
and soar, at night, among the branches of the stars,
navigating their spaces using only hems; seams; skirting.

In a quantum dance,
our pair of estranged fox hearts,
dancing signals across a great river,
becoming one another's astrolabes,
whispering in small gestures,
entangled and never spoken,
hinted at around the eyes; lips; fingers.

Whose delicate passions hold back a ferocity of dreams,
waiting for permission to breathe,
a single inhaling, exhaling,
to last till dawn's embrace,
a newborn fawn under a canopy of green.