In the Dark

You’ll wake, in this ordinary dark.
Same dark where god knows how many
others wake, here and on worlds
and worlds—so many stars!

You’ll wake, and so will I,
in this one plain dark. How far
would you call it? Is your house on a hill,
across the city, across the world…?

Here we are. How near? Are you
whispering to me now, through the earth
or the shivering atmosphere, or what
appear to be light years? Even

if we’re asleep, some part of me hears you.

Unwitnessed

She doesn’t want me to see her dance.
She fears she’ll appear like a fish
tossed fresh from a net flopping helpless
on a ship’s deck. I must see her

dance, twist of the spirit she can’t
regulate, that vertebrate wish
for her element. I’ll have to let her

see me dance first I guess—I’ll flap
about on the floor like a seal they can’t train.
She’ll begin to move with me then.

And should she still hold back the flail,
what’s held will be the unwitnessed
soul in its fear in a creature in air,
in her beautiful failure, transfixed.