That Fierce Wild Cry In The Night

That fierce wild cry in the night
arriving only now in earshot from another time
a time to abandon everything we have gathered around us

and embrace the shadows like lovers seeking forgiveness
a time to walk away from the fire with the promise entrusted
and speak it to another wall a ship-lap tongue and groove array

of knots and grains that make us weep for the forest of childhood
no time to think here no time to hold on or let go this time
there is no pillow to turn into no soft escape that will muffle

the truth. Oh there will be days when we will ask each other
why such vital life-changing experiences cannot travel in whispers
like first kisses barely touching...why surrender must reach back

so far to the tails of our ancestors the tips of the spine
blunted and vestigial with memory neither easy nor difficult
and languages returning to tongues with a ferocity

that knows no limits and the towers in the night
with their windows of fire along the dreaded coastlines
moving moving in a dance with their own foundations

and there in the abandoned lot some of us stare
into each others' eyes longing for trust reaching
into our pockets for photographs and finding only

money we cannot spend. It's a long sentence
this sleeplessness and we wake up get dressed
in transparent fickle robes of our own imagination.