3.17.2013

sunday




Faun, Horse, and Bird, Pablo Picasso, 1936



As You Slept

so much in a line
the swoop, the curve, the curlicue
all of you expressed along a slackened jaw
loosened knot of hands, I saw exactly
when it happened, understood by just your pause
so still, reclining there, the crinkled sleeve
around your elbow, easy flow of legs
across the couch, your cheek a wrinkle, I believe
that you could doze forever, dark
slits to mark your eyes, hair's scribbled mess
the gentle lift and fall of your chest, I wonder

in your dreaming is there flight, a gallop
something great or small, anything of interest
going on at all, or static, pepper black
the blue of song, a thousand words like bird tracks
stippling your path, the start and stop
of stories, any line of thought, a note
or just your own bare sound, I see

no thread to follow, the gentle curving 
of your side leaves me no end to grasp 
and nothing to unravel, now 
you move your arm, but not to beckon
you have left no clue, just gone, your shape
a hollow, here with me yet somehow
you have slipped to dreams 
your steps a line I can not follow

--smh


Thanks to Tess at The Mag for today's prompt -- 
and to Picasso himself, of course