Treading
The roosters are pecking the shadows
in gravel, crowing over what the sun takes;
their gaits throwing up small tantrums of dust,
hocking their sickles to the grass—
they lie like attenuated oil slicks.
Snowed-in in a room of white
where I don’t dare move, a cradle
beneath your head, a bookend heavy
as wet sand, soaked in the drone
of my percussions; your mouth rooting, rooting.
How long will you seek comfort
through the memory of me—our being one
from your beginning, my beginning?
The roosters tread closer on their route
through the columns of condos,
ticking their spurs like clock hands,
twitching their combs, telegraphing: I forget, I forget.
What do I do? Count the popcorns
on the ceiling, fall asleep too? The roosters
dit and dah.
It is all aging
as you crow your breaths and shift to slide
away to a body separate. 