By the Lake

By the lake, after supper,
ashes raked smooth, voices roiling in the distance,
I move silently, swiftly –
weaving through pines on small unsteady legs,
following the pale stream of light,
racing the shadows.

I am a collector of secrets and cobwebs,
dreams jumbled with half-remembered images,
staccato words thrumming at my temples
like small points of thunder.

His ruddy hand, her waist a small whiteness,
forming continents – a geography for which I had no name,
my tongue too big for my mouth,
bitter words spilling to my throat.

Running out from dark pines, breaking to the light,
ascending the hill at the last lick of day,
green flash on the horizon,
pale hillocks breaking at my feet –
the white grass of summer
shelter for lacebugs and crickets,

the smell of night opening around me
like my mother’s evening bag spilling out
its secret perfume – an aura of forbidden places,
an awakening.

First appeared in A Wild Region (Moon Tide Press).