Your hand pushes me away
so that I float into the night,
then swing back, back from the nebulae
to our drifting conversation.
Among the race of star demons
what I saw out there—
golden chains, the spindle, sirens
chanting the music of the spheres—
blurs and streaks across star-flung
distances the chainlink fences
can’t fence out. Between
your hand and the hammock’s
slow rocking the Void
expands, twisting threads
tautening, slackening, stretched
almost to breaking:
Do you feel that wobble
of earth’s axis, space
whirling past the icecapped pole?
The pines like judges stare down at us:
What should we recant, here,
tonight, as if we’d only just begun:
Off-center already, losing
equilibrium? The world-soul moving
through the strung-out stars moves
in threads that creak and moan,
breathes between your mouth and mine.
Pushing me away, you bring
me home, your attraction drawing
down the alchemical sign:
Love draws the soul
the way a magnet draws iron.