The Percussionist Poem by Whit Leyenberger

She walked me home again.
Draping herself all around me
trickling this stolen secret into my ears:
that the world isn’t made of graph paper and erector sets
but invisible fuses impredictably firing miracle sequences.
She kissed me on the cheek for not believing. She’s blinding.
We two-stepped across seventh, and I remember when I
fell for the girl strolling down the water front to
light up a summer night like a Louisiana river boat.
Tonight you’ll just blow through town as you always have
laughing me to sleep and sailing south with emus in your wake.
But now its October and winter does dangerous things to you.
You’ll want to spend tonight together, lingering on my hands, my brow
but I’ll leave you on the stoop, beckoning with polished nails on windowpanes.
Nobody else’s embrace holds the sorrow of the sky,
yet I know whisps are nothing to lean upon, my love.
So fly, peel away your favorite sidewalk art and leave,
Go teach the river valleys to weep, you gypsy architect.
I see your small concentric circles like goslings behind you
slowly reshaping the earth to fit your gentle curves,
devouring the mountains with their tickling song of oceans.
Still, know that while others rush by seeking shelter from your corroding demeanor
I will never recoil from a sliding touch that has traced me a thousand times.
So, when children’s songs wish you away, come back to me again.
Its always sweeter than walking home alone.