Sleep's Name

I

Your name is thieved away
by the curving line of the aubergine curtain,
splinters of heart between your teeth.

You lay beside me only in dreams.
On the dogleg of sleep, I hear a voice say "Let's wade
down past the culvert. Let's skin a pussywillow wand
and fish where Sadie Creek meets
the Thornapple River."

II

It's almost enough to make me believe
that Johnny Smithwick stands alive once more,
in the muddy jeans of summer, toad in hand, bobbing like a hen's head,
and piping "Where've you been? I been waitin' for you forever."

The last pale slant of sunlight clears
the room of ghosts, and even the pyrrhous blooms
peeking from my eyes wilt along the path
to the apple tree, quaking nameless in the wind.

III

Who will step out of its shadow,
curls of smoke tendrilling wicked
from his skull as if he were god's
bastard flame, look through your chest into the flakes
of breath that fall as snow, and tell
your redemption, your sins and fears,
your last dollar's crease to the pawnbroker
waiting to sell your blood and bone?

Pick up your basket of lizards
and azaleas, my sleeper; join me
and walk home once more
with your name drifting
from your lips

like life above the light.

— Charles Musser