elemental

They look skyward and they look earthward and they always
choose the comfortable path. tunnels in the sky, through the air, fall by arcs
fade back earthward like tired, dull red rockets
and fall until they have no further to, where
a patient earth reaches up to embrace and take them back in
her spent and wayward children

at the place on the horizon where water meets air
and in this place where fire licks earth and laughs.
the place where perfection meets a stranger
exchanges glances knowing days are ticking, ticking ticking,
mystery dissolves where knowledge is a will to power
for a charismatic cowboy, the pendular rhythm of his imitation tortoise-shell pick
her taught, vinyl strings yielding sympathetic vibrations broken only by
an occasional uppity stridency following about three seconds of diamond-echo silence
reality refracted by the prism of a paint-by-numbers dream
in that place where greed meets piousness, where pull meets push
it was good when they were together
and it was good when they were one and one other


air meets fire and water licks and caresses a sleeping earth
at some place upon the horizon
there is this game, let's pretend, there was a chance, as if
that someone from the light would wield benevolent
but the loop end of the black leash tightening every second by degrees,
oh, so pretty round her pulsing, pink neck.
embers fall back down to earth and red rockets cry blood tears. one has to ask
who desires, what person seeks out that black, encrusted strap
at the horizon, where man meets woman, where fire descends,
pulled by degrees into a patient ocean waiting
it was good when they were together and it was good
when they were one and one other
a stranger cloaked in shadows becomes
perfection once again