The Last Night

Heart, moon, breath and secrets—

jackpot of life and greater than rubies

for a silk-gowned queen—

invested long ago in goddesses and mysteries,

stories and familiars.

Infrequently, a god on this theory:

If one falls likely another will rise.

So jewel by jewel dropped or planted

like magic beans in wetlands

or in pools of courage

or in an eternity of fingertips

or in tears of fathers

as heart and moon,

breath and secrets.

Tumbling, reflecting,

life, joyful and ferocious

this heart splashes down,

sinking to the depths of Diana,

my fantastic huntress across eons

and cultures light years of difference

and no further apart than the space

between humans; which is to say,

sometimes no space, at all,

and sometimes like the deaf

speaking in lost tongues.

She is elegant in silk,

delicate in sheer,

fierce and opaque like darkness

at the end of life

trialing the tigress.

Oh, my incomparable beauty,

here to love every soul willing to love back.

And moon falls next to mysteries deep,

becomes this angel, David,

who also loves the young or old,

the robust and the waiting,

and gifts them with wild yearning

for his touch,

and trades one for another

and another, until yearning becomes us all,

and the job is done.

Oh, my sweet, isn’t this a terrible delight,

the way the swamp gasses glow,

the way breath in aerosol gasps

becomes clouds of trilling vapor?

Stutter, speak, desperately sing then,

relying on voice and sorcery.

start and stop and start again until,

unhalted, shout savage, melodious joy,

defy the bully thunder,

contest the wild’s winking rumors,

confront its sly cunning.

Oh, finally,

my writhing, ecstatic secrets go further,

go firmer, go longer, go sunset to sunrise,

go sunrise to sunset, glow incandescently,

as if to banish trailing shadows,

as the dark of which we spoke

galloped after the huntress.

And next the tomcat rode

behind the young, infatuated witch.

What a story that one will be,

but this end arrives, leaving nothing

for now to say and surprise

that glory would last so long.

I’d bow but for the stiffness

overtaking my once moist and fertile self.

Still, my thanks.

You’ve been great.

You are great.