The Walk Back Poem by JAE JAE

the walk back.

Thump, thump, your hard shoes pounding on the
stale wood crosses washing under our feet—propelled forward necessarily and without premeditation; purring and
pounding, pounding,
my fists grip the pillows and the sheets.
Crunching rhythms from the rocks
that dance and spin,
with a secret moonlit grin
I follow close—
But not too closely;
percussion of the night’s new dampness,
cold and hollowed out for
all but sound,
all the squeaking wheels gone
off in my head
off in the distance, often tense, now idling.
My eyes skip ahead, watch the ties your
feet trip on and wait...
Pounding, pounding,
a sweaty head bristling
beneath the perfect border
between my palm and
the space between the ugly, the serene.
Gray eyes and gray light and all
fantasy and darkness.
Darkness all ahead. Desire a silver compass, divinely
narrow
Converging tracks
become white crevices made deeper
by my pulling;
pounding, pounding
in my chest.
Get out. Get out!
I can’t quite leave behind
that drumming in the night that is
a raw, beating scar; the walk back to your car.
The rhythm makes it quiet.

10.25.10