© 1996 Dave Awl

Cameo (March, 1995)

he offers me the small sweet onions
of his companionship
I kiss his eyebrows while the mantises
and beetles of spring watch hushed
through the skylight
water drips from the ceiling pipes
and dim stars hammer the window glass
above
I am aware of tiny, faint sounds
below the level of hearing
the scratching of microscopic violins
the whirring of the tiny wheels that move
the film forward
as my hand moves across his chest
and the succession of tiny singular moments
in which the rough feel of his chin
the cool air & darkness on our bodies
& the temporary impoundment of past & future
tenses from the vocabularies we use
seem to coalesce
like sounds into sense like words into nonsense
and as we stand up
amid scattering moths & distant arpeggios
I reel backwards from the long glance down
into the mind’s oubliette