Status Migrainosus II: The Unlovely Smell of Oranges

She says "Dance a little dance with me".
She sings "Dream a little dream,"
And again I fall into the dark.


She holds me close as we dance,
My oldest friend,
As close as my memories of her
That stretch back in my mind almost as far
As the face of the quiet Hunter,
He who has always been my goal and my goad.
She holds me tight in the dark
And it is hot and we dance and we spin and spin.


She says "Dance a little dance with me.
Dream a little dream".
She sings in a language she has taught me
And again I fall into the dark.


My oldest friend,
As close as the lie in a lover's kiss
As we dance and spin and spin
In the darkness where everyone passing through 
Is limned in fading light
And the rising dark of our dance is
Intimate in every way.
We dance in the dark and know nothing of the world.


She sings only for me
And this is always her song:
"Dance a little dance with me, dream a little dream".
And all duty and desire fall away
As I fall into the dark.


Her perfume is oranges, likely blood,
As sweet and as sharp as Love's first kiss,
And it envelopes me as we dance,
Scenting my reality as we spin and spin
Through the waves and the valleys and the hot.
My oldest friend and I,
Together here at the bottom of the dark,
Where the world is  a memory
And there is only the dance.


I know that one day she will call,
In a voice of marmalade and cold wet earth,
And she will sing "Dance a little dance with me,"
And through my tears I will dance;
She will sing "Dream a little dream,"
And I know only her embrace;
And she will whisper, into the cups of my ears,
"Stay here, a while with me, in the dark,"
And all of my desires
And all of my hopes
And all of my breaths-
All of my equations- will fall to zero,
To the smell of oranges
As we spin and spin
And then spin no more.

Mnemosyne

(Every time the wind blows, I hear your voice but you're never there)

I remember you like sound

Sound like words

Words like the breeze of life

And I rise over this city

Taken up in your atmosphere

Seeing your face in clouds

That form from my longing

And surround me like light

Light like skies

Skies that stretch to forever

Like my memory of you

That survives the passage of time

Like a garment well-worn

Comfortable and warm,

But put away now

Only on occasion to be stroked,

Touched, to live again in its softness

Soft like the sound of our love.