the night the rain smelled like nightshade
like a man coming home from war
I laid my head on your chest

that is to say I weighed my thoughts of self betrayal
against your dancing heart
to see if our love was a wound we shared

or if I waltzed alone

throwing myself against your skin
like the rain on the glass
by which we once counted the hours we had spent apart

when I could have just thrown stones
something that would bruise
have left some part of me with you

to weigh heavier than the last feather
an angel could have bartered with
in hopes to stay the hand beckoning them to fall

but as I moored that sinking ship
somewhere in the hills
where the moon had split in two

the radio mumbled a song
that we’d forgotten the words to

about a man marooned
in the blue between midnights
never again to depart

and right then I knew
we who bloom at night
play no part in dark

because someday
love
our scar in time

will call us home at last
from the hindsight tides
of unlived pasts

and see itself unmasked

never to depart again
from our dancing hearts.