Arts for the 21st Century

Do You Lie Alone?

Do you lie alone?

Also in your empty bed,

That stretches to the hovering horizon?

 

Do you lie alone?

Also under that hollow roof

That catches the silent singing

Of the melancholy stars?

 

And, outside your window,

Do crickets chirp quietly

Into the boiling heat

Of these faceless islands?

 

Do you lie alone?

With your window open

Letting in the sound of the surf

Licking the cold hard sand?

 

Do you lie alone?

Hearing the heartbeat of raindrops

On the bitter oleanders

That give you back your diamond tears?

 

And do insomniac gulls

Sing to desperate sleep

That has left you

Warm and empty?

 

Do you lie alone?

Hearing the silent crabs scuffle

As the fan above your head hums

Your spreading solitude?

 

Or do you lie, like me,

Surrounded by that vision

Of you

 

Dancing like a hummingbird,

A smile swimming softly

On your too perfect face?

 

Do you lie, like me,

Lulled awake

By that misty memory

Of your glances under the doming sky,

 

While I prayed drunkenly

Into the red night

 

For more than just

A bag of memory

And the wide moon smiling?

 

Or do you lie alone,

Oblivious to the truth:

 

That the soft singing stars

Sing softly to you

Their blinking admiration

 

That the crickets chirp

Into the dying night

Praising your soft embrace

 

That the bitter oleanders weep

Until they bloom at the smell of

Your fragrant promise

 

That the surf licks the quiet sand

To be close to your

Moon-stained face

 

That the fiddling crabs count

The grains of emerald sand

To occupy their lovesick little hearts

 

That the worried eyes

Of the sleepless seagulls

Are softened as they alight

Next to your stretching bed

 

And that I

In my groundless hope

Also

Lie alone.