Though only 29 she had the eyes of someone who had been

staring at walls too long on her knees

her pupils, dark as they were

glazed over with loss of expectation no longer reflected

I wore the skins of effort, and the boots of climb, in my hands I carried keys

how can you have given up already? My inner query voiced

you can learn very soon and very young that there is nothing. Her dark eyes reflected in response

I wanted to gather her up and save her

I was after all, the one who tried to save people, it was the only thing I knew to do

and I couldn’t even save myself

the pockets of my dress, opened outward and everything I claimed

fell behind me like voices caught in a well

I knew they would accuse me of exploitation, “You only saved her because she was beautiful, you’re an old pervert, there’s always an agenda with your choices”

could they be right? Who will defend the mockery of the mute

did part of me hope upon saving her, she would turn to me and?

peel her orange skin like a locust and reveal her lacquered center?

I didn’t dare think on it. I wasn’t as they thought, an old pervert, glut on the lust of youth, sipping through a straw, the firm skin of minors

I’d never had expectations, what did they look like? Ink marks on paper, a map, a set of rules, runes, signifiers, the last message left in Roanoke

where did they go? Those four and twenty souls?

If I had been her age I might have put on Dreamweaver and lying on Indian pillows, we’d sip our Mathilde and smoke ourselves licorice into sleep

If I had been her age I might have reached over drowsy and foolish and lain my hand on her mango hip bone, jagged as it was, rising from her clothes

and if this was a fantasy, she may have turned to me, her heavy-lidded eyes, perfumed with fruiting intensity and let me inside

where ribbons of everything she’d seen in 29 years, hung like unworn dresses acting as flags on empty ships

and if I were walking her long strip of velvet behind me gathered twice about her neck like a looping string of pearls dipped in midnight, what song should I have sung?

she who lay beneath me purring herself into pleasures chasm, stretching herself about me like an elastic band with limitless rebound

then in that moment, our fingers, clenching and unwinding, pouring deep and still like frozen water catches its breath before tumbling forward

her voice in my ear, hot and fast, all the things never disclosed

it wouldn’t matter then what others thought

they on their high horses unable to stoop and reach in, the breast of earth and plant their hearts

the flicker in and out of light and day

her back like well oiled marble come alive, arching and soldering

her hair, matted and sticky, flung beyond the sheets, causing forests to make way, for her cry, an unseen bird among the trees, low throated and unceasing, releasing alabaster sorrow and pent-up cellos of crime

she would no longer stare at walls unseeing

she would learn in her youth, the rush of spring and renewal vibrating against her could feel

good and real, a returning silhouette, ushering memory to fresher climb

and I, who fixed people could

lie next to her smile, feeling in the air

a cage emptying

my own and hers

found in azure lake

dreaming of escape

kneeling until ground seized by

termagant gave way to infinite space

filled with starlight