Nooj

Between my shadow and my soul

Soraya's beauty

The most beautiful face I have ever seen
is that of a woman staring calmly,
Ever so patiently and gently,
At her mad abuser's violence,
refusing to cower

Sandpaper syllables


scrape scrape, every
syllable just needling a
surface for you to polish
out my curves and flatten
my wonks, just rub hard enough and
you'll imprint, your reflection, on my heart

You alone do we worship


As the warmth shaded the sand, he hid in a shadow,
certain that she had discarded his presence
as she lay, in that sand, her skin
peeling from such exposed passivity
her arteries slowly clotting and burning
her eyes crusting and cracking

Watch out! A vulture's trajectory made him dizzy
as he waited in dismal, slow dejection
rejected and spent, wretched and bent

At some point he had to betray courage, approach and
try to save some semblance of...her and
the excruciating saltiness of her skin
diminished his hope, and bravado

He waited yet, what else could one do, what else,
leave her half-buried in sand, half-baking
in despair, no caressing love could she reach
and any contact would breach his fragility
Wait, wait, and, wait........

Until, a ray,
rounded the horizon,
and the birds
sweetened the clouds into submission,
andthe first soft raindrops precipitated moonlight
and his unease melted into a glimmer of stirring
her skin absorbing the moisture, her
eyelids fluttering in calling, he transcended her
innermost driving, the moonshine guiding them to the
tidal rhythm and they float endlessly with the echo
of nothing but the rhythm and the tide,

nothing but the rhythm and the tide

the rhythm and the tide

and the tide

the

tide

infinitely,

to forever