Pale Nimbus before speech before the tongue pierced the wall of silence creating longing and pathos and enigma a door opening or maybe only a passing car awakens a sleeping phantom a paper ghost descending with each step a reminder of the one before to the basement where the striations of the generations bleed through the spongy walls I sit quietly in the darkest corner bathed in a narrow ray of light from a small window near the ceiling green like the green of french velvet or maybe softer like the carpet of moss beneath the redwoods where we walked hand in hand Hansel and Gretel your hand feels small in mine yet I know it to be larger and square with blunt fingers and pale nails with moons but that is some time later I sit with my back to the damp wall peering into the coal dark but I see nothing—until the dance begins one small brave spark from a million miles away and a millennium spawn of the nimbus awakened by my intrusion renegade, escapee without benefit of partner splits into two—It is the beginning breisheet Now each small spark has found a mate and so forth—and so on reproducing with unrestrained naked abandon They are everywhere bowing to each other and calling in squeaky voices I hear them before I see them And then I see them before my tears blind me Berkeley, CA, 2006
Hiding Out