less than light

I find aubades in curtains, blushed and river-hued,

in these high-strung bricks of a Harlem still slightly

un-gentrified, just south of 125th, just west of Lex:

as we cross the river, sometimes the sun strikes prisms

 

to pause the series, lost to a neutral shade or the wary

squint of a blind; and sometimes I find another leave-taking

in the gladioli dawning from a canvas bag,

their fervent ripeness clutched in a man’s hand, a man

 

who loves to make the same woman laugh

every morning in the seconds before they leave the train,

the flowers brilliant against her skin, as if caught

in panes of gentle lines like petals among leaves.

 

Shimmering less than light, glowing with signal shifts,

the tunnel silvers glass to ghost my face, where I

might have swallowed these goodbyes as the sun,

the stars, or the stripped stem of a rose lacerating

 

the pulsing of my thoughts. Scored by windows, flowers,

lovers, palettes without a brush, I am unable

to do more than weep and breathe into my heart,

too ready to blame and to curse what I became

 

through becoming this through becoming here

through becoming who I have become.