i will never laugh at  how
you measure out your days in teaspoons,
and mourn like a frail ghost
looking in my window.

i wish that this mountain stream
behind my house
could shatter into shimmering stars
hung along the night

by the Seven Sisters of the Milky Way
like a silver hammock
rocking you to sleep

but tonight i am dressed in lace
that makes a pattern on my skin
like tangled sun and shade.

let me come with you
cheek to cheek,
our fingers intertwined
moon-shod and young
with the April wind

through ten thousand miles
of words and pictures, wind and rain,
over a hundred years of sparkling stars
along this weedy path of dream,

like two apparitions who have lost their way