I wait again
Beneath an oak tree
Unleaving in the fall
In the corner of a back yard
Shaped by the scarred and leaning
Pickets of a fence
Waiting with my eyes closed

I open my eyes
In the total silence of a photograph
I watch the stillness of her running body
Black and white and gray
I see myself within her narrowed eyes
And smiling in the smile that shapes her lips
But she is trapped forever in an instant
Of her coming to me

So I must close my eyes again
To free her from the paper and the light
To see her run and reach me touch me
Touch
With her fingers warmer than mine
Where the power of something beyond me
Beyond us
Drains myself from me like in a faint
Till the world comes clear
In a waking of vision from the ground to the sky
Like opening my eyes for the first time

I feel the wind cold in my eyes
My new bones thin within me
Raising skirts above the dust
Above slim ankles needing freedom to run
To run to one who waits beneath
An oak tree
With his eyes closed

Holding me in his hand
And in his mind
Till I reach him
And reach out to touch him
But he opens his eyes in my face
And I                          freeze
Into the stillness of my running body
and he moves away

In the air that carries me down