Lost Letters

 Lost Letters

Night walked over the street

without looking down.

The eyes of the houses were

bloodshot unshut, half-lidded and dull,

the rooftops flushed with spikes and scales,

epidermal fever bumps on dinosaurs

hunkered in carnivore calypso, rhythmically

chewing their peers in primordial mud.

High above the reptile-backed town

the moon was the round stone

of a rose quartz ring.

The sky grew a band of moss

to hold her fast

to wrap her round

and so she passed the night

through her needle eye

a scarf pulled windward

from east to west above our heads.
I wrote to you one last time

on the passing skin of darkness;

I saw the words fly up and out,

tattoo a stirred fire's spark

on black, a red moment's breathing

in and out before the dawn,

and I knew, those bright

combustible letters of air 

inked in starry ash on moving sky,

long before you sent them back

unread,

were dead.

~September 2012

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Sunday Challenge: Photography of Margaret Bednar

Margaret posts her poetry and photography at Art Happens 365

Photo: © Margaret Bednar

Used with permission.