Cradlesong - EZRA VINE

Under your palm

Arrow’s lake stamps beside your name

Thumb ‘cross the lines

Test its weight and you begin to rise

Levitate

Its enough to lay beside

Remain awake

Perfume rises and lingers from the lines

Pulls her curls across your eyes

Pacifies and replaces the hollow that she makes

When she’s worlds away

Hunched over now

Reciprocate

A garland made in autumn shapes

Her hazel eyes

New to taste

Swallowing the rhyme

Shiver shake

Notion crystallized

Kiss contained

Buttoned down inside

My blue ink

Turning over each phrase in your lidded eyes

Heavy on the midnight hour

Write a way ever further down inside her name

But she’s worlds away

It means so much to try

Though it’s bitter every time

In the violence of the wait

Crawling cross the page

To the desolation gate

And the persimmon tree

Oh bird I’ve never seen

Return her on your speckled wing to me

Return her back to me