HOME | DD

Description
My feet hurry down a long hallway
Tiled with colors that transfigure underneath me,
Throwing my anxious toes out of sync.
The lights are dim, lanterns that flicker occasionally
Or go out altogether.
The light is uncertain, perforated,
Or shining with an urgent, wild glare;
I look closer and see lightning bugs beating gossamer wings
Against the lanterns’ walls.
Ahead of me there is a dawning glow;
I can see it if I strain my eyes and look for the gleam
In the eye of a crow, the luster on an elephant’s tusks.
My foggy limbs stream towards it in a sluggish burst.
To my right a passage hurtles by, another to my left,
Enticing, unexplored, but the bulls-eye up ahead is certain.
I spread out into a crackling puddle, then rise in a
Thawing, balmy vapor, a blurry mist that reaches pearly tendrils first to one
Side, then the other.
I am not my own;
The colors flashing by nod greetings and clutch at my hazy toes.
My fire is leaving me; it flashes away into the lightning bugs I leave behind, then
Flies into the gleam that has become a blaze.
I falter and I fall,
Condensation on an arctic canvas.
The light is close enough for ghostly arms to cradle,
But it is not there, only a sullen reflection on a corridor corner.
Too late, I am floating in a higher state,
And too late, I see the fruitless miles clicking down below.

Description
My feet hurry down a long hallway
Tiled with colors that transfigure underneath me,
Throwing my anxious toes out of sync.
The lights are dim, lanterns that flicker occasionally
Or go out altogether.
The light is uncertain, perforated,
Or shining with an urgent, wild glare;
I look closer and see lightning bugs beating gossamer wings
Against the lanterns’ walls.
Ahead of me there is a dawning glow;
I can see it if I strain my eyes and look for the gleam
In the eye of a crow, the luster on an elephant’s tusks.
My foggy limbs stream towards it in a sluggish burst.
To my right a passage hurtles by, another to my left,
Enticing, unexplored, but the bulls-eye up ahead is certain.
I spread out into a crackling puddle, then rise in a
Thawing, balmy vapor, a blurry mist that reaches pearly tendrils first to one
Side, then the other.
I am not my own;
The colors flashing by nod greetings and clutch at my hazy toes.
My fire is leaving me; it flashes away into the lightning bugs I leave behind, then
Flies into the gleam that has become a blaze.
I falter and I fall,
Condensation on an arctic canvas.
The light is close enough for ghostly arms to cradle,
But it is not there, only a sullen reflection on a corridor corner.
Too late, I am floating in a higher state,
And too late, I see the fruitless miles clicking down below.