The Snowghost

The snow ghost take the laughter
and they take the screaming too.
They take the tears
the unlocked fears
they take what makes you true.

I walked alone
it was after midnight
the snow fell thick
under a streetlight
the golden orb
was shook
with flakes
as big as torn apart peonies.
I miss the snowghosts.
I miss myself.

The path was made of footprints
the path was made of sand
the path was two by two by two
the path was hand by hand.
The winding through the woods
was made of needles, pine and soot,
the memories that we left there
we will never reach on foot.

And I lost you there,
my child, my eye, my ribbon in the wind
I lost you and you left the acrid
stench of curry and tamarind
in your wake
i wept a pear tree
and the pear tree
wept the snow
and the snow ghosts
brought you to me
after all i had i had let go

and you nursed of me
the last i had
and i nursed of you
the first
and you awakened in me
any bloody thing
but thirst.
I miss
the nights
i was trapped in amber...
i miss
the morning of the morning after
when your sickness
was upon me
when your marks were on my throat
when I had nothing left to get
except i still could get your goat

and you were always right behind me
when you were not in my face
and then one day i ran so hard
i wound up wounded
wounding in
the wounding space.

I am nothing like I used to be.
I wonder how you ever loved
a halibut like me

who walked on land and breathed the air
and told you riddles about dirt and
dirty riddles about fish.
I wish to god I'd never made
my first and only wish.

In the leaving
I am whole.
I go back to the water
and I go back to the sun
neither is my home
for my home is in the run

and in the running

and i may be caught here
in the sap
but it too will break
or melt and then I'm never coming back,
so wear me
wear me out
wear me close to your weakest point.
know if I struck you there
i'd take your breath and snap your joints.

For I am but a snow ghost
and I bear no mark of you
and I melt
before the morning
and I slip away like dew.