Maybe you are Big Foot
stomping near Loch Ness
or wherever dreams go
to sleep. I never did admit
to wanting to sleep
with you.

We used to heat the air with talk.
Eyes fell on lips that fell
on ears and so forth.
We were making words
that erupted between silences
instead of love.

I could have finished
all of your sentences.
You could have ended
all of my expositions
with a question mark.
We were an epic saga

Or a fairytale. While lisps
teased at corners of lips
my vision of you wavered
from phoenix to swan
to grave-digging swain
of the empty cool moon.

We are a paragraph's length
apart and not getting closer
to the denouement. Why
postpone the last page
to linger at the start?
I was never self-denying.

Come visit my cottage
in the spring. Leave the bog
of yesterday for once.
I will lay out sunflowers
on the ground. I will lay out
quiet as a hungry mouse.



Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng

A Union

Whenever I attempt to put into writing

what a world with you in it has come to be,

a whole slew of words come charging at me.

Wrestling amongst themselves,

they struggle to best each other

in encapsulating the breadth and width

of the wonder that is you, the mystery that is us.

Chaos ensues even before I set my pen upon paper,

and scribble these thoughts as quickly as they come.

But even when I have set ink against the smooth white surface

of my trusty notepad, I hesitate and reconsider,

hastily blotting out what had previously been set

and at the end of the day, have a huge blob of ink sitting

where a bit of prose may have been found.

 

Forgive me then if I dabble in my books and imaginary castles

for words are all I have in this perpetually shifting world

to capture the precise moment

we chose to embark upon this adventure.

For if I cannot set it into words, what then?

Many have gone before us

and attest to the harsh, brackish waters to come

yet also hold testament to the majestic beauty of places

unsullied by previous encounters.

 

My heart tingles with trepidation

(in part because of the uncertainty

that lies ahead, but mostly because

it is fortified by the confidence of your warmth),

as we forge ahead, hand in hand,

foolhardy half-wits possibly doomed to impending folly

yet utterly satiated.

Just flushing out rusty pipes.



A long time ago, in a galaxy
in your backyard, was the birth
of a death of a star.

You make your home in a crater
on the dark side of the moon.
Each revolution night that
doesn't break; always setting.

Light refracts away from the curvature
of the heavenly body where you live.
The horizon is obvious and forever.
I would have to bow to gravity.