Half an Hour

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Hurt, hurtful, snake-charmed,
struck white together half an hour we tear 
through the half-dark after

some sweet core, 
under, over gravity, 
some white shore ...

spin, hidden one, spin,
trusted to me! laugh sore tooth 
sucked warm, sweet; sweet wine

running cool through new
dry shrewd turnings of my soul, 
opening veins.

Gull-feathers beating, 
beating! Gliding. Still, 
sidelong eye ... wings beating

like words against my eyes. 
And your eyes—
o brother-animal, mild,

terrible!—your eyes wait, have been waiting, 
knowing,
unknowable, on that sky shore.

A life is waiting. 
Its webbed hand 
reached out ...

Trust me!
truth-
telling fish of the sky!

your hand beyond my hand, 
your phosphorous trail 
broken, lost.

© Jean Valentine