by Ford McDonald
the sky opens its porous ribs before you
a night so still, after a storm prostrated into silk
the crows are mute in beauty, a dove-coo burbles
through your secret waters, feathers glisten
soft pink, the streetlights beg for mercy & more
tell us what the light behind you is saying
O salt-breath, rider of wraith & wave,
tell us of your darkness & how far
you can see
I imagine we share this love
for the sky’s emptiness. I am asking
if in this love, we could merge into a howl
you the black wolf, & I the cloud-marrow
fang dripping of ebony’s blood
O ancient chariot, patient wheel
trenching along the silence
of my open mouth
your hand slips past the night’s lace
the night is my skin, and there are fingers
clutching the dark weeds
at the bottom of a lake
under water, I hear a heart
wringing itself out like a mud-rag
above the kicking of feet
I blink twice
& I can hardly bare it
I only know from where
& where to
I want to be a bloodless hand between here & you.
I want to be loved like a pink feather buried in the sun.
Ford McDonald is an engineer and writer whose poems have appeared in Sky Island Journal, Texas’s Best Emerging Poets, and eleven40seven. He currently resides in Dallas.