arms threading past one another,

fountains of water treading air.

Her hips curved to make innumerable letters,

body like a calligraphic pen,

in and then away,

from the shadows to curse my eyes.

She danced to switchblade magick,

splitting the night with her skin.

Fear and awe were rings about her fingers,

claws like angels,

flying to a soft rhythm.

Her lips parted,

whispering a haunting tune none could know.

She seemed entranced in what occupied her,

and I could not stop.

I could not take my eyes away.

She drew closer from the meadow,

past the threadbare ivy and pergamum,

through rose sage and back along the grassy hillock.

Her orb shone bright and full,

losing itself,

merely a broach to her naked spectacle.

She wove love and hate,

in curves and fractured jabs.

I knew not if ecstacy or suicide of the spirit pursued her,

yet I had to look,

to see what she created.

She was a pool of water,

disturbed, rippling,

like an answer I couldn't understand.

The ground was careful to balance her,

hand and fingertip praying silently,

to carry through another night.

I made a sound,

and felt the force of death upon me.

She quickly lunged,

forceful,

galloping away and around,

lost and found,

flicking back and forth.

My eyes bulged.

Suddenly she loomed above me,

dark,

backlit by the hoary sky.

She smiled wide,

sprouting unholy poetry with every step forward.

I ran away. I ran until the earth betrayed me and I lost my way. I kicked away flesh and bone on stone and bramble and rocky outcropping. I ran until she died far away from me.

Sometimes I sit by the pewter-cast candlelight of my desk, and look out to the moor. I am fooling myself. I am not looking for her. I am looking for something to replace a vision I cannot sell, bend, boil or break. I was a fool. She plucked my eyes and dances with them to this day--even though I keep them always.

The pen mumbles beneath me,

upon the page,

underneath the moonlight.

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