Sprite
Once
you were
close to me as flesh to bones
light to day
moon to dream
flies to honey.
Not really you, was it
that amber heart
glittered across my dark,
that voice, that breath
offering perplexing
comfort
but just a sprite of you
ungrasped like a child's balloon
sent out to sail to
disappointing freedom--a popped prop,
bright red scraps, then dead-forgot
forever
yet here I stay
bud-eyes to the sky
immutable twisted root
hosting the symbiotic
froth of fungi, the frozen nymphs,
underground and secretly
altering,
or
flailing out a tendril, celebrating a twig,
rediscovering my wedding
of worms, finalized at last
after a long engagement.
Old balloons still may sail
on paper;
I stay here
everspent but evergreen.
~April 2018
for Magaly's Thirteen
the 13 words:
flesh bones alter amber paper flies frozen breath voice
comfort perplex memory rediscover
Image: The eye like a balloon sails to infinity, 1898, Odilon Redon
Public Domain
